Si 



iiili 




Glass \fi 


6 I; 


Book 


bf[ b lot 
— «. — 





CopyrigMK? 

COPYRIGHT DEPOSm 




ROBERT BRYCE MILLER, D.D. 



"He Yet Speaketh" 



A Selection of Sermons preached by 
the Rev. Robert Bryce Miller, U. D. 
Edited by the Rev. John S. Duncan, D. D. 



Foreword by the 
Rev. JOHN McNAUGHER, D.D., LL. D. 

President of the Pittsburgh Theological Seminary 




New York Chicago 

Fleming H. Revell Company 
London and Edinburgh 



Copyright, 1920, by 
FLEMING H. REVELL COMPANY 



■3 1321 



New York: 158 Fifth Avenue 
Chicago]: 17 North Wabash Ave. 
London : 2 1 Paternoster Square 
Edinburgh : 75 Princes Street 



©CU605948 



In grateful remembrance of goodly fellow- 
ship and loyal support this volume is dedi- 
cated to the Churches which Dr. Miller served . 

First United Presbyterian Church, Beaver, Pa. 
First United Presbyterian Church, Butler, Pa. 
Third United Presbyterian Church, Pittsburgh, Pa. 



Foreword 



HE sermons composing this volume are 



published as a memorial of the Rev. 



Robert Bryce Miller t D. D., who died in 
the pastorate of the Third United Presbyterian 
Church of Pittsburgh on October 19, 1918. For- 
mally the life of this true worker for the coming 
of the Kingdom of God can be told in a few words. 
He was born at New Hope, South Carolina, August 
25, 1877. When he was about ten years of age the 
family moved to Sardis, North Carolina, near 
Charlotte. He was graduated from Erskine Col- 
lege, Due West, South Carolina, in 1899.. Having 
resolved on the ministry, In which he was preceded 
by his honoured father, he enrolled in the Pitts- 
burgh (then Allegheny) Theological Seminary of 
the United Presbyterian Church, and completed the 
course of study in 1902, Thereafter he was con- 
tinuously in the service to which he had surren- 
dered himself, constantly obeying with seriousness 
of purpose and strenuousness of will the commis- 
sion received from his Lord, His first charge was 
at Beaver, Pennsylvania, where he was ordained 
and installed on October 28, 1902. From there he 
removed to the First Church of Butler, Pennsyl- 
vania, his new pastorate beginning June 24, 1908. 




5 



6 



FOEEWOED 



After spending almost six years at Butler, he an- 
swered the call of the Third Church of Pittsburgh, 
taking up his duties officially on March 12, 1914, 
and remaining in that relationship until his ap- 
pointed " twelve hours " were over. In these three 
fields of labour — all of them important, but with 
the second surpassing the first in opportunity and 
responsibility, and the third the second — Dr. Miller 
gave himself unstintedly to his allotted task. There 
was a wealth of real, rich manhood in him, and 
this, sanctified and wrought upon by the Holy 
Spirit, became a working force in everything to 
which he set his hand. Never did he let his office 
crush his personality. Back of the message was 
the messenger, with his strong, balanced, sympa- 
thetic, genial selfhood. He had a heart charged 
with profound feeling for his fellowmen in their 
spiritual needs, and thus prompted he steadily 
braced himself to do a man's work. This made it 
that his ministry, while a draft on all that was vital, 
never partook of drudgery, but was a source of 
satisfaction and delight, and esteemed a privilege. 

As a preacher Dr. Miller's ideals never dwindled, 
and so he went from strength to strength. He saw 
things from the angle of the common people, and 
spoke concretely. His thought fulness and studious 
habits saved him from falling into the ruts of com- 
monplaceness, and his sermons had power in them 
to grapple and stir the soul. With a broad outlook 
and a wholesome spirit, he kept well out of that 
zone of pessimism which predicts social bankruptcy 



FOREWORD 



7 



and general chaos just ahead, preferring to inter- 
pret truth from the sanguine and sunny point of 
view of one who believed in a good time coming, 
and progressively coming. His congregations 
were sure to hear the Gospel, with its appealing 
notes of promise and comfort. He ranged through 
the cardinal themes of Christian faith and practice, 
all the while making Christ manifest and insistent. 

The sermons that occupy the following pages, 
though few in number, are true to type. They 
have been selected by Rebekah Gordon Miller, the 
devoted wife of Dr. Miller, aided by the counsel of 
some friends, and have been edited by the Rev. 
John S. Duncan, D. D., of Mercer, Pennsylvania. 
With silent eloquence they will recall a man greatly 
beloved whom in the midst of his days God trans- 
lated into eternal usefulness, a man the issues of 
whose serviceable life here will flow on full of 
survival values. 

John McNaugher. 

Pittsburgh, Pa. 



Contents 



I. From Care Set Free . . . .11 

II. Losing Christ 21 

III. Accepting the Cross .... 34 

IV. God's Aristocrats .... 44 

V. The Hem of His Garment : A Sacra- 

mental Meditation . . - 54 

VI. A Message to the Needy . . .63 

VII. A Message to the Doubter . . 71 

VIII. A Message to the Perplexed . . 79 

IX. Heroic Womanhood .... 88 

X. The Soul's Return and Welcome . 100 

XI. The Hidden Battle . . . .113 

XII. The Increasing Christ . . .122 

XIII. God and the Individual . . .133 

XIV. The Unknown Future . . .143 

XV. Shall We Know Each Other in 
Heaven? .153 



9 



I 



FROM CARE SET FREE 

Be careful for nothing; but in everything by prayer and 
supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made 
known unto God. — Phiuppians 4:6. 

IN giving this closing message on the general 
subject, Virtues that Count in Times of Peril, 
I would speak especially of the virtue of calm- 
ness or equanimity. This is the virtue by which 
we face life's emergencies with fortitude, that com- 
posure of spirit which cannot be disturbed. It 
seems to me that in these trying days there is special 
need of the exemplification of this virtue. People 
are so likely to give way to hysteria, to allow them- 
selves to become victims of corroding care and of 
that type of amity which in destroying peace 
destroys usefulness. Aristotle, the " Father of 
Ethics," considered the virtue of equanimity the 
very crown of character. We perhaps would not 
give it so high a place, but certainly we would say 
that the possession of a calm and quiet spirit is one 
of the essential virtues of life. 

At once the question arises, Is it possible to be 
possessed of such a spirit of equanimity? Is it 
possible to attain unto the exalted heights of these 
words of Paul, that in nothing are we to be anx- 
ious? Is it possible to live a life from care set 
free, a life of peace and calm in the midst of what- 

11 



12 FEOM CAEE SET FEEE 



ever storms may arise? There are a great many 
foolish answers to the question. There is the fool- 
ish answer of the Christian Scientist, who would 
set us free from care by denying the reality of 
things that disturb. There Is the answer of the 
philosopher who says that whatever Is is best, that 
it is possible to meet all the situations of life with 
a philosophic complacency. There is also the an- 
swer of the Stoic, who says that men must not per- 
mit themselves to become elated over success or to 
be downcast by failure, that the cultivation of a 
stoical indifference or suppression enables men to 
live their lives in such a way as to gain the victory 
over care. On the other hand, there is the answer 
of the Epicurean, who says, 11 Eat, drink, and be 
merry; for to-morrow we die," who would ignore 
the seriousness of life and drown to-morrow's 
anxiety in the wine of to-day. 

It is evident that these views of life will not free 
life from care. The Stoic, for example, by his 
philosophy would contract the heart and dry up 
the very springs of life. The failure of the Chris- 
tian Scientist is in that the denial of the reality of 
things does not make them any the less real. 
Sooner or later they will assert themselves. Simi- 
lar objections can be brought against the other 
views. 

It would seem to me, after careful study of this 
subject, that there is but one cure for care, but one 
way in which we can be set free from it, and that 
is by trusting in God and dedicating one's life to 



FEOM CAEE SET FEEE 13 



the interests of the Kingdom of God. It seems to 
me that it is not possible for the life of the un- 
believer to be free from' anxiety, for his life is 
without the things which tend to free from care, 
without confidence in the paternal interest of God, 
in His fatherly love, in the eternal home which He 
has provided for His children. 

On the contrary, the life that trusts God and 
learns to cast its anxious care upon Him, and to 
meet the issues and emergencies of life with prayer 
and confidence — in such a life there is no place for 
care. Such a life gives full and literal obedience 
to the counsel of the apostle: " Be careful for 
nothing ; but in everything by prayer and supplica- 
tion with thanksgiving let your requests be made 
known unto God.'* It is a fact not to be denied that 
this virtue of calmness or equanimity of spirit 
reaches its finest development, indeed its only true 
expression, in the lives of Christian men and 
women. We find men like Job saying, in the midst 
of the most crushing providences, " I know that my 
Redeemer liveth." We find the psalmist singing, 
" My heart is fixed, O God, my heart is fixed : I 
will sing and give praise." There was a majestic 
calmness about the life of David that can be ac- 
counted for only by his trust in God. " David 
encouraged himself in the Lord his God." The 
man who gave this- counsel of our text exemplified 
it in his own life. With what calmness did Paul 
face the severest tests of life. When perils loomed 
before him he said, " None of these things move 



14 FROM CARE SET FREE 



me." He was in a Roman prison and writing out 
of his own experiences when he said to the Philip- 
pians, " Be careful for nothing." He displayed 
this same calmness as he faced death, saying, " I 
am now ready to be offered." 

One marvels still at the majestic calmness of our 
Lord. A recent writer on the life of Jesus has a 
chapter dealing with the poise which He was al- 
ways able to maintain. He never allowed Himself 
to be over-much disturbed, and He faced persecu- 
tion with calmness. Beyond question the calmest 
spirit in the midst of the wild storms of persecution 
that raged about Him and beat upon His devoted 
head as He hung upon the cross of Calvary was that 
of Jesus. We wonder still how, at His trial, He 
stood in perfect calm as false witnesses bore their 
testimony against Him, as men smote Him in the 
face and spat upon Him, and placed the crown of 
thorns upon His brow. Through it all, like a lamb 
before her shearers, He was dumb and opened not 
His mouth. Such questions as He saw fit to an- 
swer He answered with perfect self-composure. 
Even on the cross He kept His calm and poise. 
The secret of such equanimity was His quiet trust 
and perfect confidence in the Father. 

I have gone at such length that I might show 
that only the Christian can live a life from care set 
free. I wish to illustrate that truth as it bears 
upon the widest experiences of life. These I 
would state in this way: the interests of life, the 
investments of life, and the issues of life. 



FROM CARE SET FREE 15 



In a little study in connection with prayer-meet- 
ing the other evening I was impressed with this fact 
that when Jesus sent out His disciples on their 
missionary journeys He said to them, " Fear not/' 
and the word translated " fear " is practically the 
same word that Paul used when he said, " Be not 
anxious." A little further study reveals the fact 
that what Jesus told these men was, in effect, that 
they had the right to be free from fear concerning 
the things I have just mentioned, the interests of 
life, the investments of life, and the issues of life. 
Let us consider these in their order. 

I. First, freedom from care as to the interests 
of life. 

By " interests " I mean what Jesus meant when 
in the Sermon on the Mount He used the words, 
" Take no thought for your life, what ye shall eat, 
or what ye shall drink ; nor yet for your body, what 
ye shall put on." The answer to that temptation 
to anxiety about these common things of life, the 
things which we need for our bodies, is given in 
the words of Jesus: "A sparrow shall not fall on 
the ground without your Father. . . . Fear 
ye not therefore, ye are of more value than many 
sparrows." This does not mean, of course, that 
we are to make no effort to be useful and to do 
honest work and to make provision for the future ; 
it does mean that we are not to give way to fear 
concerning these interests of life, for God teaches 
that He will take care of us if we trust Him and 
do our duty, and this no matter how difficult the 



16 FEOM CARE SET FREE 



situations that face us or the emergencies that arise. 
In these words of our text Paul was writing to men 
and women who were in the midst of troublous 
times and were suffering persecution: " Be careful 
for nothing; but in everything by prayer and sup- 
plication with thanksgiving let your requests be 
made known to God." 

What is true as to the common and ordinary 
interests of life is true likewise as to the emergen- 
cies or crisis times, Too often we borrow trouble. 
We are full of forebodings over things that never 
will come to pass, and possibilities that may arise. 
It is so easy to imagine all sorts of calamities and 
forget the promises of God: "As thy days, so shall 
thy strength be; " " My grace is sufficient for thee." 

We can lay this down as fundamental, that if we 
are God's children and do our duty, God will not 
only provide for our needs as they arise ordinarily, 
but will supply strength for the emergencies and fit 
us for whatever may arise in the future. It will 
not help us any to struggle ; it will only weaken us 
to worry, and the cure for us all is confidence in 
God. It is this confidence in reference to all life's 
troubles that will produce a calm and quiet spirit: 

" I would not have a restless will, that hurries to 
and fro, 

Seeking some great thing to do or secret thing 
to know ; 

I would be treated as a child, and guided where 
I go," 



FROM CARE SET FREE 17 



II. Freedom from care as to the investments 
of life. 

How often people are tempted to worry as to 
whether their life is going to be a success, whether, 
also, the thing in which the life is invested is worth 
while. As the disciples of our Lord went forth to 
preach in His name He assured them that they 
need have no fear as to the future of that work in 
which they were about to invest their lives, that it 
was destined to succeed, that His kingdom would 
prosper and the cause for which they stood must 
prevail. From this we gain this fact, that the life 
invested in Christ and in the service of His king- 
dom need ha\ e no fear that the life will be a fail- 
ure. Most of as can look back upon things in 
which we invested time, money, and thought. 
These enterprises failed and the things which we 
invested in them seem to have been lost; but that 
which we invest in the service of God is never lost, 
for with Him there is no failure. Again and again 
we have been assured that the Kingdom of God 
will come, that the temple of truth is being built 
slowly through the ages and that every life invested 
in Christ is a spiritual stone built into its walls, and 
when it has been completed we shall find to our 
eternal joy that in the rearing of the glorious struc- 
ture we had a part, even though it were only a small 
part. Tennyson wrote that in this world nothing 
walks with aimless feet, and that not one life shall 
be destroyed or cast like refuse on the heap when 
God has made His pile complete. Whether true 



18 FEOM CARE SET FREE 



universally, it is true of the life which has invested 
itself in the cause that is supremely worth while. 

It will be seen eventually that life has not been 
wasted. I am thinking of the men who are going 
across the seas in the interests of the cause which 
we believe to be the cause of Christianity and 
righteousness. When we are disturbed by the fear 
that many of them may never return, let us not for 
one moment feel that such lives will have been a 
failure. Let not the men who go give way to anxi- 
ety. The cause of righteousness must win and if 
we are called upon to die in its behalf, the life and 
death will not have been in vain. 

The same truth obtains in the lives of those who 
go out in response to the missionary appeal. The 
other day I was reading of a young physician who 
had been graduated with honours from Harvard 
and had gone as a medical missionary to China. 
This man had the brightest prospects in our own 
land, but he chose to bury himself in the midst of 
that seething multitude of people in North China. 
He was in China only six months when he fell a 
victim to an incurable disease and he sleeps to-day 
among the mountains of China. That life was not 
wasted. That which took him to China glorified 
his brief career. 

The only cure, then, for anxiety over the invest- 
ment of our lives is to identify them with some 
cause that is worth while, and especially the su- 
preme cause of Jesus Christ. We shall be relieved 
of all anxiety as to failure, for if we do but the 



FEOM CARE SET FREE 19 



least possible for the cause of Christ, we shall not 
have lived in vain. To the man of two talents, a 
man of only moderate endowment but faithful in 
the use of his gifts, Jesus said, " Thou hast been 
faithful over a few things, I will make thee ruler 
over many things." 

III. Freedom from care as to the issue of life. 

To those disciples who went out into the uncer- 
tain future, to face bitter enmity, persecution, hard- 
ships, death itself, Jesus said, " Fear not them that 
can kill the body, and have nothing more that they 
can do." I suppose that our greatest temptation 
to give way to care comes when we think of the 
future, and especially that long future " beyond 
the door which swings ever inward but never out." 
What is the cure for care as to the future of our- 
selves and of our loved ones ? It can be answered 
thus: 

1. Death touches only the body; it does not 
touch the soul. No enemy can destroy a man's 
soul. No bayonet can reach it. No shell can dis- 
sipate it. The most that any man can do is kill 
the body. Death has power over the body alone. 
It can go no further. 

2. Beyond this conflict, in which the body may 
be dissolved, there is for the child of God the 
Father's house, the home of many mansions. 

3. That home brings God's children into the 
most perfect fellowship, " Then shall I know even 
as also I am known." This fellowship is not only 
with our Redeemer, but also with our loved ones, 



20 FEOM CAEE SET FEEE 



who have gone before or who shall follow us into 
the realms of glory. 

Among the soldiers of Great Britain death is 
spoken of as " Going West." Dr. Tiplady, an 
English chaplain, was asked as to the reason for 
thus speaking of death. His answer is highly sig- 
nificant. He said, " The sun sets in the west to 
rise in the east the following morning, and death is 
but a brief night that precedes the morning and the 
eternal sunlight of heaven." Only yesterday I 
read of a lad in France who wrote to his brother, 
" Take care of mother till I come home." A few 
days later his name was in the casualty list, and his 
mother, in her splendid faith, said, " He has not 
come home ; he has gone home." 

Let me sum it all up by saying this, that the 
heart that is fixed on God our Father, on Jesus 
Christ as the supreme expression of the Father's 
love, in whose service the whole life should be in- 
vested, and marked by a supreme confidence as to 
the Father's house as the home for the future, such 
an one can say with the Psalmist, " I shall never be 
moved," and with the great apostle, " In nothing 
am I anxious ; but in everything by prayer and sup- 
plication with thanksgiving do I make known my 
requests unto God," and follow the counsel of 
Peter, that we cast all our care upon Him, knowing 
that He careth for us. 



II 



LOSING CHRIST 



But they, supposing him to have been in the company, went 
a day's journey; and they sought him among their kinsfolk 
and acquaintance. — Luke 2 : 44. 



Scriptures. How a father and mother could lose 
their boy and not know for a whole day that he 
had been lost, and lose him because they had gone 
on their way supposing him to have been in the 
company instead of actually knowing it, not discov- 
ering the loss until night, is hard indeed to under- 
stand. The strangest part of It Is that he could 
be lost by the mother, by hef who bore him and 
loved him and ministered to him and knew 
withal that he was no ordinary child. Yet she 
was so eager to get home, so absorbed in the com- 
pany of those with whom she journeyed, so taken 
up with all that she had seen in Jerusalem, that she 
lost her boy. He was lost in the most unlikely 
place, for they lost him as they were turning from 
church. Some of our children might be lost re- 
turning from church because their parents are not 
with them, but the father and mother of Jesus 
were in the company with him and still he was 



W 



HEN we come to realize the meaning of 
this verse we see here one of the 
strangest incidents to be found in the 



21 



22 



LOSING CHEIST 



lost. They lost him because they took it for 
granted that he was with them, playing somewhere 
in the circle of children, instead of knowing cer- 
tainly that he was there. Those three days be- 
tween the discovery that their boy was lost and 
their finding him in the temple must have been ex- 
tremely distressing. 

In this incident there stands out one great fact 
which might well be considered by Christian men 
and women, the possibility of losing Christ. I am 
thinking not so much of the permanent loss of 
Christ as that temporary loss which means that we 
must go along in the journey of life sorrowfully 
because we are without Him. 

A Christian life may be defined as one of union 
and communion with Christ. That, perhaps, is the 
simplest definition. It is a life lived in constant 
fellowship with Him, conversing with Him in 
prayer, feeling His help in the time of need, going 
to Him with all our secrets and living consciously 
as in His presence. But let us remember that He 
does not come where He is not welcomed. u Be- 
hold, I stand at the door and knock." Nor does 
He stay if He is not wanted. Therefore, let us ask 
ourselves this question, Is Christ really with us or 
do we only suppose Him to be in the company? 
For no one knows better than ourselves whether 
we have Christ with us or whether we only suppose 
Him to be with us. No one knows so quickly as 
we ourselves when we lose Him. A great musi- 
cian made it a rule to practice eight hours a day. 



LOSING CHRIST 



23 



When surprise was expressed at this, his answer 
was, " If I should not practice for a single day, I 
would know it ; if for two days, my friends would 
know it; and if for three days, the world would 
know it." The truth thus expressed applies in our 
relations to Christ. If we lose Him for even a 
short time, we are conscious that something has 
gone out of our lives. If we lose Him for a few 
weeks, our friends detect the loss. If for months 
we cease our Christian fellowship in prayer and 
public worship, the world sees the change that 
comes over our lives and knows that we are back- 
sliders. Great Christians are made like great musi- 
cians, by constant " practice of the presence of 
Christ," who brings music into our lives by touch- 
ing them with His love and grace. The theme, 
therefore, which I wish to have you study with me 
to-day is this, — Losing Christ. 

Two things are to be considered : first, the pos- 
sibility of our losing Him; and, second, the prin- 
ciple of restoration to His presence. 

I. The possibility of our losing Christ. 

If as they went to Jerusalem some one had said 
to his mother that on the journey she would lose 
her son, she would have laughed in scorn. Yet the 
fact is that she did lose him and went a whole day 
before she discovered her loss. If we Christians 
should be told that it is possible for us to lose 
Christ, to be without His companionship, we would 
not believe it. Yet it is possible and I wish to look 
with you at this possibility. 



I 



24 



LOSING CHEIST 



1. Some because of past experience suppose 
Christ to be in their company. Mary knew that 
the boy Jesus was with them when they were ready 
to start, and she supposed that he was with them 
still. It was only when night came upon them and 
darkness fell that she realized to her sorrow that 
he was not there. Some time in our lives we have 
come face to face with Christ We have felt His 
power and been thrilled by the resolution to live a 
Christian life. We have confessed Him, have be- 
come members of His Church, and had the pro- 
found conviction that He was ours and we were 
His. Then we have trusted to that experience and 
thought that because Christ was with us once He is 
with us still, only, like Mary, to find in some hour 
of need that He was not there. 

I am not disparaging the experience or question- 
ing its reality. The point I am striving to make is 
that one experience is not enough. It must be 
renewed day by day.. In Christian experience there 
is nothing this side of eternity that has in it the 
element of finality. Penitence must not be once 
for all ; there must be a daily sorrow for and con- 
fession of sin. Even the yielding to Christ must 
be repeated day by day. If we do not keep up 
these Christian exercises and experiences, we are 
just supposing Christ to be with us, when in reality 
He has passed out of our lives, 

2. We suppose Him to be in our company be- 
cause of our belief in Him and in the truths of His 
Word. His mother believed in Him. She be- 



LOSING CHEIST 



25 



lieved what God revealed to her concerning Him, 
and yet she lost Him. One may be perfectly ortho- 
dox in his beliefs concerning Christ and yet not 
have Christ. We may have light and not have life. 
It is possible to have the head believe and not the 
heart. We may be like Simon Magus> who be- 
lieved in Christ intellectually, and yet Peter said of 
him that he was in the gall of bitterness* and in 
the bond of iniquity. It is possible to know the 
Bible from beginning to end, to hold sound views 
as to its teachings, and yet not know the fellowship 
that is in Christ. I wa9 once acquainted with an 
old gentleman who was wont to lament the liber- 
ality of the Church, who bewailed what he believed 
to be a tendency on the part of the Presbyterian 
churches to drift away from Calvinism, a man who 
actually believed in infant damnation, and yet he 
was a hardened sinner indulging in drink and other 
sins. It is, therefore, possible for us to suppose 
that because we have sound views as to Christ we 
have Him with us when in reality we are strangers 
to Him. 

3. Some suppose Christ to be in their company 
because they are busy at Christian work; but we 
must remember that the parents of Jesus were busy 
at Christian work. They were on their way home 
from church. They were talking to their neigh- 
bours about the great things of the feast, and still 
they lost Christ. There is a lesson here for all 
who are active in Christian service, for workers 
and officers in the Church. Business is not holi- 



26 



LOSING CHEIST 



ness. The hands may be full and the heart may- 
be empty. The lips may be warm with false fire, 
while the heart is as cold as a stone. Our work 
for Christ, strange as it may seem, may cause us 
to lose Christ. That is, we may so busy our- 
selves in the work from other motives that we lose 
the very heart of it all, Christ Himself. It is pos- 
sible for us to keep the vineyard of others, while 
our own vineyard we have not kept. Christ wants 
our work, but most of all He wants our hearts and 
our daily fellowship with Him. Gypsy Smith tells 
that when he went back home after nine months 
in this country he found his pastor overwhelmed 
with work in arranging a home for the waifs of 
the city. Though Gypsy Smith had been long 
separated from his family, he felt it to be his duty 
to help out. As he was working his little daughter 
Syla was hanging to his coat-tails and playing 
about him in childish glee. Being in the com- 
pany of a gentleman, whom he feared the child 
would disturb, he gave her some money and told 
her to buy some candy. The little girl quickly 
replied that she did not want his money, that he 
had been away from her so long she just wanted to 
be with him. The father said that it was a great 
rebuke to him. There are people who are willing 
to give Christ their services, their money, their 
time. All of these are good, but Christ wants us 
and not ours. I am not exaggerating, therefore, 
when I say that this may be one way in which 
people in the Church may lose Christ. No amount 



LOSING CHRIST 



27 



of Christian service is a substitute for fellowship 
with Christ. Companionship with Him comes 
first and service should be at once a help to that 
companionship and the expression of our devotion 
to Him who has counted us worthy of a place in 
His service. 

4. Some suppose Him to be in their company 
because they are too busy with other things, often 
the things of the world, to find out certainly that 
He is there. The deepest truth about this loss on 
the part of Mary was that she was so busy getting 
her things together and enjoying the fellowship of 
her friends and planning for the trip home, that 
she just took for granted that her boy was with her 
and did not take time to see if he really was in the 
company. Her work was all good. There is no 
criticism to be made because of her interest in her 
plans and in her friends, but all of these things 
were secondary to that of having her boy with her, 
and they could have been entered into more joy- 
fully if she had been sure that he was there. 

In this there is a lesson for our own day. We 
are busy in these days with many things. In the 
home, in business, in behalf of our country, men 
and women are crowded with work. It is the 
tragedy of our souls if we allow ourselves to be so 
absorbed in anything, even of great importance, 
that we lose the Lord out of our lives, if we neglect 
His worship and prayer. Some sad day we shall 
waken to realize that our Christ has gone. 
II. The restoration of the lost Christ. 



28 LOSING CHRIST 

It was a sad hour when Mary discovered that 
her boy was not of the company. Those three 
days in which she was seeking him must have been 
terrible. The thought of her lost boy In a great 
city, and especially a country boy who did not know 
the city, would be enough almost to turn her heart 
to stone. We know how any of us would feel in 
such circumstances. One of the writers from the 
battle- front says that the most terrible news is that 
summed up in the one word "missing." There 
may be some comfort when one knows that a loved 
one is at rest in the sleep of death, and comfort, 
too, when one knows that a loved one is only 
wounded and is being taken care of by tender hands 
in a hospital ; but " missing ** may mean one or 
more of many terrible things. It was an awful 
moment for Mary when she realized that her boy 
was missing and we can better imagine than de- 
scribe that search lasting all through that first 
night, the next day, and the following night until 
the morning of the third day, when she found him. 

Let us look for a little at the steps In the restora- 
tion of the lost boy as suggesting or illustra- 
ting the way by which, if we have lost Christ out 
of our lives, we can find Him again and keep 
Him. 

1. There had to be a confession of loss on the 
part of the mother. That would be no easy thing 
either. It was rather humiliating to have to con- 
fess to the throng of people that she had actually 
gone on and left her boy behind. It is always 



LOSING CHKIST 



29 



humiliating to have to confess one's shortcomings, 
and when we have drifted away from the loving 
and faithful Saviour if we would get back to Him 
a similar humiliation must be ours. It may be 
that some of us, as we look back over the years, 
are realizing now that we have indeed lost Christ, 
that prayer has lost its power, the Word of God 
its sweetness, and fellowship with the people of 
God its delight. There is but one remedy. Like 
honest men and women we must come and face our 
Lord and Christ, face Him before our friends and 
before the Church, and resolve that by God's grace 
we shall find Him. Our encouragement is in His 
word of promise given: " Ye shall seek me, and 
find me, when ye shall search for me with all your 
heart." 

2. There is the suggestion, too, that every other 
interest must be laid aside until this search is re- 
warded. Mary changed all her plans. She parted 
with her friends as they went on their way. She 
left everything and went back and searched until 
she found him. 

This we, too, must do If Christ has departed 
from our lives. We must plumb the depths of our 
hearts, put away every sin, and make this supreme 
search, seeking first His kingdom and Himself and 
resolve that we will never give up until we have 
found Him. There is often a great deal in our 
religion that is superficial. We attack other prob- 
lems seriously and go through with them. We are 
content to suppose that God is with us, and the 



30 



LOSING CHRIST 



fearful thing about it is that in some hour when 
need presses hard, we find that He is not with us. 
I knew a woman in this community who imagined 
that she was a Christian. She had become very 
much interested in Christian Science and felt that 
it would satisfy her life. The result was that she 
gave up the church of her fathers and her friends. 
The hour came when sickness took hold upon her 
and death stared her in the face. Then she dis- 
covered that she did not have Christ. In the time 
when she needed Him most He was not with her 
because years before she had lost Him and was 
fondly deluding herself that He was yet in her 
company. With the diligence which marked this 
mother's search for her boy should we search our 
hearts until we come to the place where we find 
Christ. It may be necessary to go very deep and 
to cut away things that have stood between us and 
Him, but at any cost we ought to find Him. 

3. This story suggests that the best place to find 
Christ is in His Church. The lonely boy, when he 
discovered that he had been left behind in the 
great city, did what was the most natural thing in 
the world for him to do. As soon as he discovered 
that he had been left behind, he went to the temple, 
and there, after three days, his mother found him. 
She found him in the temple of God, and it has 
always seemed strange to me that she did not seek 
him there first. 

There is a suggestion here which it might be 
well for us to note. We hear much of religious 



LOSING CHEIST 



31 



exercises and fellowship outside the Church. I 
have heard men say that they could find God as 
they walked by the river, on a Sabbath ride with 
friends, or sitting at home reading a good book. 
But Mary did not find Christ until she found Him 
in the Father's house. In the very nature of things 
it is in the Father's house that we still are to look 
for the Son. Jesus loved to linger about the tem- 
ple then; He lingers within its sacred walls still. 
If in fidelity to its service and worship we come 
back to the Church, we shall find what Mary found, 
Jesus waiting to receive us. 

4. There is a final suggestion: Mary found 
Jesus where she lost Him. 

This is generally where men and women find 
Him. We have got to get back to the place where 
we parted company with Him, to the place where, 
in broken vow or deliberate sin, we turned our 
back upon Him and left Him. We must go back 
and make confession, back to the doing of some 
work which we have left undone, to the paying of 
some vow we have left unpaid, back to the place 
where we lost Him. There we will find Christ 
waiting, patiently and lovingly, to go again on 
life's journey with us. When Jacob lost God out 
of his life, he had to go back to Bethel. There he 
found God ready to renew His covenant with him. 
That Lot might find his God again he must flee 
from Sodom and go to the oaks of Mamre, where 
he had parted company with Him. Peter had to 
go to the lake where he had made his rash vow, 



32 



LOSING CHRIST 



" Though all should forsake thee, yet will not I." 
There where he had first found Jesus he found 
Him again, heard His words, " Lovest thou me ? " 
and was restored again to the confidence of the 
Master and to service in His kingdom. 

To-day, as we look over our past and perchance 
realize that Christ has gone out of our lives, a 
little thought will tell us just where we lost Him. 
It was in some sin that we committed, some wrong 
which we did another, some broken vow, some 
overwhelming enterprise which crowded Him out 
of our lives. If we would find Him and have re- 
stored unto us the joy of His salvation, we must 
retrace our steps and make confession of our sins. 
When Jesus said to Zacchseus, " To-day I must 
abide at thy house/' he knew the conditions and 
said, " Behold, Lord, the half of my goods I give 
to the poor; and if I have taken anything from any 
man by false accusation, I restore him fourfold." 
He got right with Christ by getting right with his 
own past, and then Christ went home with him. 
To-day He waits patiently in His temple, as He 
waited patiently those three long days for His 
mother to come again and take Him home with 
her. If we have lost Him out of our lives, let us, 
through repentance and confession, go back to Him 
and find Him and take Him with us through the 
years. When we start on our journey in His com- 
pany, even though the road may lead to Nazareth 
and it may be a rough road, and Nazareth may be 
poor and mean and full of toil and trial, the road 



LOSING CHEIST 



33 



will really be brighter. And we may be sure that 
whatever experiences may come, they will be made 
glorious by His promise and His presence, " Lo, 
I am with you alway." Let us, then, go up to the 
Jerusalem of our broken vows and take Christ with 
us to Nazareth. 



III 

ACCEPTING THE CROSS 
(Matt. 26: 39-46.) 

THE three sources of the temptation of 
Jesus were Satan, His fellowmen, and 
His own flesh. The temptation which 
we are to study to-day had its source in His own 
flesh, the natural shrinking of the human spirit 
from the agony and the shame of the Cross. 

Jesus never looked out toward the cross without 
a reluctance and hush falling upon His spirit. He 
always referred to it as His " hour," and spoke of 
that hour in most solemn tones. At the wedding 
in Cana of Galilee He even rebuked His mother, 
saying, " Woman, what have I to do with thee ? 
mine hour is not yet come." On the mountain of 
transfiguration He spoke with the heavenly visit- 
ants of the death He should accomplish at Jeru- 
salem. When the Greeks came seeking Him, He 
said that the grain of wheat must fall into the 
ground and die. When the sons of Zebedee strove 
for the foremost place in His kingdom, He re- 
ferred to His cup and His baptism. Here, on the 
night before His passion, He sees His cross etched 
upon the evening sky, and He shrinks from it. 
In fact this was the only time in His life that He 

34 



ACCEPTING THE CBOSS 35 



asked to escape His Father's will. "If it be pos- 
sible, let this cup pass from me." 

It was probably midnight of Thursday when He 
entered Gethsemane. He had experienced a busy 
and a trying week, teaching all the day long, talk- 
ing with His disciples and with His friends till 
late in the night, in all probability getting no sleep 
at all. Judas had gone out and betrayed Him, 
and He knew that the crisis was near. Besides be- 
ing weary from labour and loss of sleep, the 
thought of the cross stood out in all its black 
horror, and the temptation that entered His soul 
was to refuse the cup and run away from it alto- 
gether, choosing some easier way to perform His 
mission to the world ; but He found help in prayer 
and gained the victory, and now faces the betrayal 
and all the sufferings of the cross not only with 
perfect calm, but actually made His cross a place 
of counsel, of blessing, and of prayer. 

Let us look then at the power of that temptation, 
the prayer for power, and the power received. 

I. The power of that temptation. 

Why did Jesus so shrink from the cross ? What 
was there even in this terrible experience that, more 
than anything else in His life, caused Jesus to 
shrink from doing His Father's will? We can- 
not answer these questions, nor shall we ever be 
able to answer them in their fulness this side of 
the veil; but there are three things about the ex- 
perience that made the cross peculiarly hard to 
bear: 



36 ACCEPTING THE CEOSS 



There was, first of all, the matter of physical 
pain. For Jesus there was peculiar horror in the 
cross because, for one thing, He was of a tender 
and sensitive nature. He was a young man, not 
dying from exhausting sickness, but in the bloom 
of His youth. It is one thing for a man of iron 
nerve and brute-like frame to yield himself to the 
surgeon's knife ; it is another thing for a man with 
a keen and sensitive nature, with a vivid imagina- 
tion, to yield himself to torture. The higher in 
the scale of being, the finer in organization, the 
greater is the agony both in experience and in 
anticipation. We would expect him to face and go 
through that ordeal calmly. Many of the martyrs 
before him sang psalms while the fire burned their 
flesh, and white- robed companies sang praises while 
the lions were bearing down upon them. Even 
tender women have called to each other in words 
of cheer while the rising tide chilled them into 
death. But these heroic souls had with them in 
flame and tide the living and all-sustaining Christ. 
Jesus trod the winepress alone and for Him there 
was no helper. In His flesh, worn by labour and 
strain and grief and loss of sleep, He shrank from 
the physical agony of the cross. 

The second element In it was the pain of mental 
distress. After all, was this the hour to which God 
was leading Him, this the way? Could this be the 
will of God? He had all His life anticipated the 
cross. He had read the prophecies concerning the 
manner of His death, but when He came to that 



ACCEPTING THE} CROSS J 



37 



hour all was uncertain, and with the pain of body 
doubt swept in over His souL On the evening of 
September 22, 1862, Abraham Lincoln sat with 
the proclamation of emancipation before him un- 
signed. Liberty to the slaves had been one of the 
dreams and purposes of his life. He had looked 
forward to the hour when he could strike the 
fetters from four millions of people. With fervent 
lips he had prophesied its coming, through the 
years had cherished this high ambition, yet when 
he faced the actual deed he hesitated. He took up 
his pen again and again only to lay it down. He 
knew that hearts both north and south would swell 
in thanksgiving at his deed; he knew that sooner 
or later it was inevitable. Yet with quivering Hps 
he asked, Is this the hour? Was there no gentler 
way, no way that would cause less suffering in the 
prodigal South and even shrinking back in some 
hearts of the North? With less violence might 
not these prodigal states be won? Is this the hour 
and the will of God ? In that mental anguish, his 
biographer tells us, he remained through all the 
night, and only as the morning light was breaking 
did he sign his name. 

When we think that Jesus found it ever easy to 
know the Father's will, we greatly err, With 
Him, as with us, the problem was to know the 
Father's will as well as to do it. Once He knew 
it clearly and felt God's presence with Him, He 
went bravely to the cross. "Arise, let us go hence." 
But all the time there was the mental anguish of 



38 ACCEPTING THE CROSS 



indecision and doubt. How many of you in some 
small measure have ever experienced that anguish ? 
I felt it in some measure in the first call that came 
to me to preach, and in some measure I have felt it 
as from time to time I have been called upon to 
consider change of place. And you too have had 
your Gethsemane as you have struggled to know 
the will of God and striven for courage to do or 
bear that will. 

The third element was the pain of loneliness and 
desolation. One of the things that impresses itself 
upon the heart as we read again this story is the 
utter loneliness of it all. In the garden He left His 
disciples and went a little farther alone. At the 
betrayal all forsook Him and fled. At the trial 
Peter went out and He was left alone with His 
enemies. On the cross even the Father hid His 
face until in His agony He cried, " Why hast thou 
forsaken me ? " 

But even this was not His most trying loneli- 
ness. That came in the loneliness of His humilia- 
tion and His shame. There are three kinds of 
loneliness. There is that of solitude, which is 
often desirable as one seeks the quiet of a 
secluded stream for meditation. Then there is 
the loneliness of character such as all great men 
have, Moses and Paul and Jesus. Then there is 
the loneliness of shame and humiliation. There 
are times when such shame and humiliation come 
and one is left alone in it. That was the loneli- 
ness of Job. Great grief and loss had come to 



ACCEPTING THE CROSS 39 



him. His friends forsook him and passed by with 
haughty mien. Even his comforters accused him 
of some great sin. In his loathsome sickness and 
suffering his friends were ashamed of him. In 
Victor Hugo's Les Miserables we read the story 
of the loneliness of Jean Valjean. When men dis- 
cover his shame, lover, acquaintance, and friend 
fall away from him. Little children look upon 
him with distrustful eye. Homes once open to 
him are barred against him. The agony of the 
man was in a large measure due to the loneliness 
which sin brought upon him. Let any man recall 
the hour in which some great shame and humilia- 
tion fell upon him or upon a dear one. Do you 
remember the silence of that loneliness? How 
few sought your door. How few there were to 
speak a word of cheer. That was the loneliness 
of the cross. In the humiliation and shame of 
Jesus His friends forsook Him and fled. The 
crowd felt that He was indeed a malefactor as were 
those who hung on either side. I knew a man who 
was a minister. He had a wayward son who every 
night was drunk and to be found in places of 
ill repute in the city. That minister, a man of fine 
and sensitive nature, would seek out his son in the 
places of sin and lead him home. Those who fre- 
quented the places of shame looked upon him too 
as a frequenter of the same places, only that he 
was still sober. Even members of his congrega- 
tion passed him by in silence. That was the shame 
of the cross. He who hung thereon was misjudged 



40 ACCEPTING THE CEOSS 



by stranger and enemy, and misunderstood even by 
His friends. The shame of the cross is the finest 
proof of the love of Him who was the victim of 
the cross. A father or mother will suffer humilia- 
tion, bear the mis judgment of the world, be patient 
under the silence of friends and lead home a 
drunken son or a wayward daughter. Jesus will 
permit Himself to be looked upon as a malefactor, 
die on the cross made only for criminals, be for- 
saken by His friends, all that He might lead you 
and me back from darkness and death to light and 
life. 

This, then, was the temptation of the cross. It 
is not a matter of wonder that He shrank from it. 

II. The prayer for power. 

I have referred to the fact that in every crisis in 
the life of our Lord He found refuge in prayer. 
It is not, therefore, to be wondered at that when 
He stood facing the cross with all its horror, and 
that for the reasons spoken of He shrank from it, 
He should at such a time seek refuge in prayer. 
That He might engage in prayer He went into the 
seclusion of that garden whither many times be- 
fore He had resorted for the same purpose. That 
this garden was owned by some friend, or possibly 
a secret disciple of Jesus, as was the case with the 
colt and the upper room, is altogether probable. 
Such an owner would gladly permit the use of it. 
It was about the hour of midnight that, saying to 
His disciples, " My soul is exceeding sorrowful," 
He went to the familiar place. Leaving His dis- 



ACCEPTING THE CKOSS 41 



ciples behind Him, He went a little farther and 
knelt in prayer. This He did three times. In con- 
nection with this prayer there are two things I 
would have you note: 

First, it was a prayer that He might clearly 
know God's will, know that this was the hour in 
which and the method by which He should redeem 
the world. That dread of the cross was part of 
His anguish I have tried to show, and that un- 
certainty that this was the hour and the way added 
to His suffering. It is only in harmony with the 
self -limitation that Jesus attributed to Himself that 
He felt this uncertainty. Then, too, doubt is often 
the result of a mind tired and a body wearied with 
its toils. And while we may have in a general way 
a knowledge of God's will for us, how often we 
feel a great desire for some clear proof that we are 
really in the way of God's will for us. Some sign 
that we are right and that our feet are following 
the way marked out for us is our earnest prayer. 
While the Master knew in a general way the death 
that He must die, and had even talked of it with 
Moses and Elijah, He wished to know clearly and 
definitely that this was the hour and the method. 
How refreshing and inspiring it is to have a firm 
and clear conviction that you are in the way that 
God would have you go I and through prayer such 
conviction is possible. 

The second thing to be observed is that this is 
not only the highest object of prayer, but as well 
its highest form, that form in which there is the 



42 ACCEPTING THE CROSS 



least of asking and the most of waiting upon God. 
Prayer is one thing, petition is another. A great 
deal of the communion of Jesus with the Father 
was in the form of waiting upon God rather than 
the form of begging God. His last prayer was not 
a petition at all, but unreserved submission to God 
and a consecration of Himself to the will of God. 
" Nevertheless, not as I will, but as thou wilt/* 

In other words, Jesus prayed till prayer made 
Him cease to pray as praying is commonly under- 
stood. For prayer, thus understood, He substi- 
tutes consecration and surrender. It cost time and 
struggle, but this is the lesson, that we pray until 
prayer makes us cease to pray. It is for us to pray 
until we forget our own wish and merge our wills 
into the will of God. And the highest form of 
victory in prayer is not when through prayer we 
have escaped the trial, but when like the Master we 
have learned to say, "Arise, let us go to meet the 
evil courageously and victoriously/* 

III. The power received. 

We see matchless power and courage displayed 
by the Master when He walked calmly from that 
garden, saying to His disciples, "Arise, let us be 
going." Then from the moment He met His be- 
trayer until He cried, " It is finished,'* He bore 
Himself through those awful hours of agony and 
darkness with calmness, dignity, and self-control so 
majestic as to cause even His enemies to marvel. 
The hardened captain of the army of Rome, ac- 
customed to seeing men die, cried out, " Certainly 



ACCEPTING THE CEOSS 43 



this was a righteous man." One poor criminal at 
His side saw in Him his Saviour, and his cry was, 
" Lord, remember me when thou comest into thy 
kingdom." As has been said, He died not like a 
man but like a God, and this because He had sur- 
rendered to the will of God and accepted the cross. 

Victory over temptation for us lies in the prayer 
of submission to God's will till self-will becomes 
self -surrender. In such a prayer we must say, 
" Not my will, but thine be done." Doing this, we 
shall find our compensation, and that is the knowl- 
edge that whatever comes is the best, best for us 
and best for all. Whatever comes, take it to the 
Lord in prayer, and pray till prayer makes you 
cease to pray and leaves you saying as did our 
Lord, " Thy will be done." Take it to the Lord 
in prayer. 



IV 

GOD'S ARISTOCRATS 

7 know thy works, and tribulation, and poverty, (but thou 
art rich)— Revelation 2:9. 

THE church at Smyrna, to which this mes- 
sage is addressed, was one of the most 
interesting of all the early churches. 
Situated in one of the highly influential cities of 
the first-century world, it had a most checkered 
history. The city of Smyrna was the only rival 
of Ephesus In Asia, though not as large. It was 
peculiarly a city of education, of wealth, and of 
refinement. It was one of the seven cities which 
claimed to be the birthplace of Homer. It was a 
Greek city and was rebuilt by Alexander the 
Great. To this day it is one of the largest cities 
of Asia Minor and the center of missionary opera- 
tions on the part of the Presbyterian and Reformed 
Presbyterian churches. 

As to the founding of the church in this city we 
have no record. We know only that its minister 
was Polycarp, who died a martyr when he was 
ninety years old, and it is probable that this letter 
was addressed to him. The church in Smyrna had 
suffered almost constant persecution, not only at 
the hands of the pagan population and the Roman 
officials but as well from the Jews. 

44 



GOD'S ARISTOCRATS 45 



It is a matter of significance that this city, now 
in the center of Armenia, is still in the midst of the 
bitter persecutions of the Turks. It is rather re- 
markable that to this church, which was peculiarly 
a suffering church, there is addressed no word of 
complaint. It is the only one of the seven churches 
of which this is true. The meaning of that is, that 
in this church and in the lives of its people there 
was nothing with which Christ was displeased, and 
that is praise which can rarely be bestowed upon 
either an individual or a church. 

Though there is no complaint, there is not a 
great deal in the way of commendation. The 
- church in Smyrna is not as highly commended as 
is that in Ephesus. Indeed, two or three of these 
seven churches seem to have been of greater ex- 
cellence. But in the commendation of this church 
there is one word that is singularly freighted with 
meaning. To this church Christ's word is, " Thou 
art rich." This statement, though only in a 
parenthesis, is the key to the meaning of the whole 
message. Jesus said to this people, " You are 
God's aristocrats.'* 

Under a single statement concerning Christ's 
conception of riches we may be able to gather up 
the message of the Master to this church* 

When He said to this church, " Thou art rich," 
He certainly did not have in mind material wealth, 
for in the same sentence He says, " I know thy 
poverty." The truth of this is confirmed by the 
record of history, which tells us that the property 



46 



GOD'S ARISTOCRATS 



of the church was largely confiscated. Neither 
did Christ mean the riches of learning. Nor could 
He have meant the riches of family inheritance. 
There are four kinds of aristocracy in the world. 
There is the aristocracy of wealth, which is not 
worth while. There is that of family. There is 
the aristocracy of learning, and that of character. 
When Jesus said to this church, " Thou art rich," 
His words must have referred to character, for the 
only aristocracy He ever recognized or commended 
was that of character. When He found men 
covetous for the possession of worldly wealth, He 
spoke in rebuke and warning the parable of the 
rich fool, saying, " So is he that layeth up treasure 
for himself, and is not rich toward God." When 
the Jews were congratulating themselves on their 
aristocracy of family, saying, " We have Abraham 
to our father," He told them that despite their 
descent from Abraham they were the children of 
the devil. When the Pharisees manifested pride 
of learning, He said to them, " Except ye humble 
yourselves, ye shall in no wise enter into the king- 
dom of heaven." What a contrast to Himself of 
Whom it is written, " He who was rich, for our 
sakes became poor, that we through his poverty 
might be rich." And the riches referred to in 
these great words are beyond question spiritual 
riches. So also is the reference in these words 
addressed to the church of Smyrna. In an analy- 
sis of the words let us find our message for the 
day. 



GOD'S ARISTOCRATS 47 



I. Spiritual riches are to be found in the posses- 
sion of a living and changeless Christ. 

"I am he that liveth, and was dead ; and, be- 
hold, I am alive for evermore." He revealed to 
them that regardless of the providences that came 
into their lives, and the sufferings which these 
brought, these mattered little so long as they were 
in possession of the living and changeless Christ. 
By " riches," then, we are to understand the 
possession of Christ, who is alive and holds the 
keys of death, and whose love does not change 
even though changing conditions mark our lives. 
What is to be observed is that Christ emphasizes 
the changelessness of His love to people living un- 
der a cloud. It is the truth which finds expression 
in the familiar line of the good Longfellow, " Be- 
hind the clouds is the sun still shining." It is a 
truth which we need to learn to-day. In these dull 
autumn days the sun may be hidden from our sight, 
but we know that it still shines. The dreadful 
war may seem to cover over the love of God, but 
that love shines on, and one day, when clouds have 
scattered, will break forth in all its splendour. 
This was the comfort in the message to the Hebrew 
Christians, " Jesus Christ, the same yesterday, and 
to-day, and forever," a living Christ and a change- 
less Christ. It is to be remembered that our Lord 
looks upon nothing as settled in this present world. 
In His eyes death is but a detail, an incident. Only 
on the other side of the grave is there final 
settlement, and time is small compared with 



48 GOD'S AKISTOCKATS 



eternity, and eternity becomes real because He 
lives. 

A few days since I listened to an address given 
by a gentleman who but recently was on the battle 
front One thing which he emphasized was the 
contempt with which the average soldier looks upon 
death. It means to him nothing more than any 
other detail of the duties of a soldier. According 
to the speaker the explanation is not in the fact of 
familiarity with death, but springs from a deep 
sentiment of religion, a feeling that death is only 
the releasing of limited energies, the opening of 
doors to larger opportunities. So Christ assures 
us, as He assured that ancient people, that if we 
possess Him, living and unchanging, regardless of 
our standing as determined by the world, we are 
rich. 

II. Spiritual wealth consists in being the ob- 
jects of Christ's great purpose of love for our lives. 

For the people of the church in Smyrna the Lord 
had a great purpose of love, a purpose involving 
the noblest character and the largest service, The 
means by which this purpose was to be accom- 
plished seemed severe, but the possession of the 
character and the rendering of the service required 
was worth any price that might be demanded. As 
a general statement it may be said that Christ has 
a great purpose of love for our lives. That that 
purpose has to do with character and service I have 
been trying to show. The method leading to the 
accomplishment of this purpose may call for suffer- 



GOD'S ARISTOCRATS 



49 



ing, the price may be great, but in the realization 
we grow rich. In the Scriptures of the Old Testa- 
ment there are words which beautifully illustrate 
this truth: "As an eagle stirreth up her nest, 
fluttereth over her young, spreadeth abroad her 
wings, taketh them, beareth them on her wings: so 
the Lord alone did lead him J* The object of the 
parent bird is to teach the young birds to fly, to 
make them strong and self-reliant. To accom- 
plish this she breaks up the nest in which they have 
tarried for a time as fledglings* She flings them 
out into the air from a lofty height and they are 
compelled to fly or at least to make the attempt. 
Should the struggle, however, become too hard for 
the young birds the mother bird swoops under them 
and bears them again to safety. This she continues 
to do until the young have learned to defy the air 
and live in the azure depths. So the great object 
of God's love in our lives is character and achieve- 
ment. Sometimes the means used are severe and 
leave us struggling. 

There are also words of the Saviour which give 
emphasis to the price to be paid fof attaining unto 
God's purpose of love. When the disciples asked 
who should be greatest in the Kingdom of God, 
Jesus put to them the question, "Are you willing 
and able to pay the price? " He taught them that 
the price which they must pay was the price which 
He Himself had to pay, the cup of suffering and 
the baptism of self-sacrifice. 

So Jesus said to the troubled men and women of 



50 GOD'S ARISTOCRATS 



Smyrna, " The tribulation and reviling which you 
suffer at the hands of men, and the buffeting of 
your souls by Satan, mean spiritual enrichment." 

It is plain, therefore, that the great purpose of 
Christ, not only as to the individual and the Church, 
the world indeed, is a purpose of love, that God's 
people be God-like and God-useful. The same 
truth obtains as to His Church. He is calling upon 
her to-day to endure hardness as a good soldier, 
to sacrifice some of the little differences that have 
tended to rend the garments of Christ. We be- 
lieve that the same thing is true of the world itself. 
God makes the wrath of man to praise Him. No 
matter how much the world must suffer, it will be 
very much richer if through the bitterness of war 
it learns to do God's will. No matter what changes 
may come in the Church, it will be a richer Church, 
if it learns through the baptism of suffering to be 
truer to Christ. The same is true as to our lives. 
We become God's aristocrats only when His pur- 
pose of love is realized in character and life. 

It will help us all to gain the true perspective of 
life, help u* to be calm in the midst of life's storms, 
if we will but realize the increasing purpose of God 
that runs through life, its character and service- 
ableness. We are to be, in the words of Tenny- 
son, " Not as idle ore, but as iron dug from central 
gloom, washed in vats of hissing tears and battered 
with the shock of Doom to shape and use." 

It may be, as in the case of Smyrna, that nothing 
short of persecution and hardships and storms will 



GOD'S AKISTOCBATS 



51 



serve to bring out the best that is in us and to re- 
lease the hidden music of our lives. The story is 
told of a German nobleman, that, delighted with a 
small /Eolian harp that sang in his casement win- 
dow, he conceived the idea of constructing a harp 
on a grand scale. Across a deep ravine in a neigh- 
bouring mountain he strung a network of cables 
and wires of varying sizes. Then he waited for 
the music, but only disappointment was his portion. 
Days and nights passed, the weeks came and went, 
and the great harp remained silent. At length one 
dark night a fearful storm swept over the moun- 
tain. Then out of the heart of the storm there 
came strange, sweet, weird music that seemed to 
be that of the gods of mountain and tempest. In 
this we may find a parable of life. How many 
lives there are in which there seems to be no music, 
nothing of beauty or sweetness or grace. Then 
breaks some awful storm and in the darkness the 
music pours forth. We are, therefore, rich in the 
realization of God's purpose of beauty and use- 
fulness in our lives, the possession of a character 
rich toward man and God, rich for the life which 
now is and richer still for the life which is to 
come. The traveller going from one country to 
another must repeatedly change his coins. The 
currency of Mexico, for example, is of little value 
in the United States. Godly character, however, 
is a coin that is negotiable both in earth and heaven. 

III. This church of Smyrna was rich in the 
prospects which God set before it. 



52 GOD'S AKISTOCKATS 



As a glorious prospect He held before the people 
the crown of life and immunity from the second 
death. " He that overcometh shall not be hurt of 
the second death." It will be worth our while to 
give some thought to what is involved in these 
promises. Everywhere the Scriptures speak of 
that strange thing which is called " the second 
death/' The first death all men experience. It is, 
however, an experience which the Christian need 
not fear. But those who are not the children of 
God, those who wilfully reject His love, are the 
victims of a second death, the death of the soul. 
The mysteries involved we do not need to consider. 
Hard to explain, it is the one thing we are taught 
to fear with a deadly fear. The Master said, 
" Fear not them who kill the body, but are not able 
to kill the soul : but rather fear him who is able to 
destroy both soul and body in helL" Immunity 
from this second death is an element in the riches 
of the believer. The second death cannot touch 
him. The crown of life is the positive promise and 
prospect of him who is rich toward God. When 
the Greek runner reached the goal there was placed 
upon his brow the wreath of olive, the mark and 
the reward of victory. Life itself is a race, a long 
and trying race beset with difficulties, but he who 
by his faith in God reaches the goal is crowned with 
the victors wreath. Of some things we are wont 
to say, " The game is not worth the candle.*' But 
the Christian life is a game to which the saying 
cannot be applied. In the Christian race every 



-GOD'S AEISTOCEATS 



53 



winner has pressed upon his brow, by the hand of 
God Himself, the crown of eternal life. 

The one word of counsel which Jesus offers to 
His Church is this word " faithfulness/' " Be 
thou faithful unto death." This is the one quality 
of soul without which there can be no victor's 
crown. It is not an attainment easy to make, espe- 
cially when providences are dark; but " he that en- 
dureth to the end shall be saved." Job, the suffer- 
ing saint of God, was overwhelmed with loss and 
grief, but he resolved that faith should not fail: 
" Though he slay me, yet will I trust him." This 
faith brought him through the darkness into the 
light of day. To Peter the Master said, " Simon, 
Simon, Satan hath desired to have you, that he may 
sift you as wheat: but I have prayed for thee, that 
thy faith fail not." Peter's faith in the unfailing 
love of Christ brought him through the dark night 
of guilt into the morning light of a glad new day, 
that day in which Jesus said to him, " Feed my 
sheep." The one course in the midst of the dark 
and trying experiences of life that will make vic- 
tory certain is that of unqualified faithfulness. 
That is an anchor which will hold in any storm. 
In that psalm which an eloquent preacher likened 
unto the nightingale, singing out its cheer and 
sweetness through the darkness of the night, the 
assurance of the writer is, " Yea, though I walk 
through the valley of the shadow of death, I will 
fear no evil : for thou art with me ; thy rod and thy 
staff they comfort me." 



V 



THE HEM OF HIS GARMENT: A 
SACRAMENTAL MEDITATION 

And, behold, a woman, which was diseased with an issue of 
blood twelve years, came behind him, and touched the 
hem of his garment: for she said within herself, If I may 
but touch his garment, I shall be whole. 

— Matthew 9 : 20, 21. 

EVERY recorded miracle of our Lord has in 
it some distinct teaching. Of His miracles 
we have only a partial record. The 
writers did not seek to pile miracle upon miracle in 
order to demonstrate Christ's power, as an attorney 
for the defense would pile up testimony as to the 
good character of his client in order to break the 
force of the accusation brought against him. 
Rather the Gospel writers give us the stories of 
only a few of Christ's miracles and show us the 
truth which each teaches. The point to be empha- 
sized in the story here is that this woman felt that 
she must touch the hem of Christ's garment if she 
would be made whole. In other words, the teach- 
ing is, that if men and women would be healed and 
blessed by Christ, they must come into contact with 
Him, and whatever may help us to such contact is 
indeed a blessing. 

The fact of her long and incurable infirmity is 
suggestive of the helpless and incurable condition 

54 ... 



THE HEM OF HIS GAEMENT 



55 



of humanity without Christ. But that I shall not 
deal with at this time. 

What I would emphasize for a little is that be- 
fore we can get the power of Christ into our lives, 
we must come into connection with Him by faith, 
and whatever may help to this end becomes a bless- 
ing to the soul. 

I. First, then, to be saved by Christ we must 
touch Him. 

It is by this touch that healing energy passes 
from Christ to us. It is a well-known principle or 
fact in the realm of the mechanical, that if we wish 
to transmit force from one body to another, we 
must first establish some sort of union between 
them. In a cotton mill, for example, you may 
have the most improved machinery and in the base- 
ment you may have a great engine and dynamo of 
enormous power; but unless you connect the in- 
strument of power with the instruments of produc- 
tion, every spindle and loom will be motionless. 
There hangs before our eyes a beautiful chandelier. 
Down somewhere in the city one can hear the whir 
of a great dynamo ; but you must connect the two 
before that cluster of lamps will glow and flood 
this room with light. Now, while we cannot al- 
ways reason from the natural to the spiritual, still 
we have in this law of material force an analogy 
which enables us to see clearly the truth that if the 
life of one spirit is to pass into another, there must 
be some sort of contact established. 

If a young man is to be ruined by his tempters, 



56 



THE HEM OF HIS GAEMENT 



they must first establish a union between themselves 
and their intended victim, and so gain his confi- 
dence and good-will. On the contrary, if a bad 
man is to be reclaimed by a good man, the good 
must establish a bond of union with him whom he 
would help. Now it is only an application of this 
same truth to the relations between men and God 
when it is said that if a poor sinner and helpless is 
to be reclaimed by Christ, he must in some way be 
brought into spiritual union with the Lord Jesus. 

Now what is the link which connects the sinful 
soul with Christ? It is the faith or trust of the 
sinner in Christ. Whatever helps a soul to get 
into union with Christ is to be desired and sought 
after. In the incident here recorded the woman 
touched the hem of Christ's garment. By her faith 
her soul touched Him so that she received the life 
that was in Him. His virtue passed into her soul 
to redeem and heal, and she went her way in peace. 

And this at once prompts the question, Where is 
the hem of Christ's robe to-day? The hem which 
this poor woman touched was probably one of the 
four tassels hanging from His seamless coat; but 
that garment, which possibly His mother's hands 
had fashioned, has long since mouldered into dust. 
Never again can any sick one creep up near to Him 
and touch that fringe of blue. Is there, then, no 
hem for us to touch? Can this miracle never be 
repeated ? Are we poorer because Christ has left 
this world and gone to the Father ? 

The hem of Christ's garment may still be 



THE HEM OF HIS GABMENT 



57 



touched, for the hem may well be used to figure 
anything through which Christ may pass to us. 
All that is beautiful in the world is the channel 
through which the virtue of God passes into the 
lives of men and women. Only through the visible 
can men touch the invisible. 

II. Let us think of some of the ways in which 
we can touch the hem of His garment and in our 
touch find healing. 

1. Well, there is in His Word the hem of 
Christ's garment. It is for us to keep in mind that 
the hem stands for the visible thing by which we 
get into touch with the invisible, that by means of 
which the virtue of Christ passes into the soul. 
Christ's word is the hem of His garment, and 
countless thousands have felt His power pass from 
Him into them by the use of His inspired Word. 
The Bible is more than a book ; it is the hem of the 
garment of the great personality which became 
flesh and dwelt among us. Some years ago at a 
Northfield Conference, one Saturday evening I at- 
tended a meeting, in which men reclaimed from sin 
related their experiences. Among them was a very 
attractive man who is to-day a prominent man of 
business in the city of New York. He told how 
one night in his room in a hotel, suffering from the 
effects of drink and other sins, he made up his 
mind to end his life by throwing himself into the 
East River. While revolving his plans his eyes 
fell upon a book. It was the Bible. At first he 
shrank from it, but after a little he opened it and 



58 



THE HEM OF HIS GARMENT 



from its pages Christ spoke to his sinful and 
troubled soul. His suicidal impulse died away and 
he went out and sought and found Christ as his 
Saviour. He had brushed against the hem of 
Christ's garment and was saved. 

Doctor Clow tells of marching with a sad little 
company of his people through a cemetery. They 
were on their way to the burial of a loved one. 
As they went along a pathway they read this in- 
scription on a stone, — 

" He was such a man as, take him for all in all, 
I shall not soon look upon his like again." 

As the mourning company read the lines the feeling 
was that there are times when Shakespeare is not 
enough. A few yards further along they came to 
a simple slab and on it these words: "Because I 
live, ye shall live also." The preacher writes that 
immediately the faces of the bereaved men and 
women perceptibly brightened. They had touched 
the hem of Christ's garment and were healed. So 
at all times we can touch the hem of Christ's gar- 
ment, — when we are tempted, when we are in 
darkness, when we need comfort, when our hope 
of immortality grows dim, when we, like this 
woman of the Gospel story, have suffered much 
and lost all. In our need, whatever it may be, we 
have only to apply to the soul some great word 
from this book, and we shall come to newness of 
life. Often it is only a single word, but it comes 
to us with all Christ's power to bless. Run over 



THE HEM OP HIS GAEMEKT 



59 



in your minds a few of the precious utterances of 
the Book: "Rest in the Lord, and wait patiently 
for him." " If ye then, being evil, know how to 
give good gifts unto your children, how much more 
shall your Father who is in heaven give good things 
to them that ask him? " " If we confess our sins, 
he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and 
to cleanse us from all unrighteousness." " Him 
that cometh unto me, I will in no wise cast out." 
" What I do thou knowest not now ; but thou shall 
know hereafter." 

" The healing of His seamless dress 
Is by our beds of pain; 
We touch Him in life's throng and press, 
And we are whole again." 

2. In the church with its ministries there is 
the hem of His garment. 

By the church I mean its beautiful buildings with 
the truths of God on wall and window and in 
spoken word. By its ministries I mean the wor- 
ship in song and prayer. 

If there be any material thing which the most 
unspi ritual man may see to be the garments of God, 
it is surely these ministries of the church. They 
may be dull at times and monotonous, but surely 
no one can enter into these ministries with real 
desire and not come from them feeling that virtue 
has entered into him. The church is a home for 
the soul, a refuge for the lonely, a resting-place for 
the weary and the heavy laden. 

There are many infirmities that may be healed 



60 



THE HEM OF HIS GAEMENT 



through Christ's ministry by means of the church. 
The Scriptures record many instances of men and 
women who have found in the temple a blessing. 
They range all the way from him who sang, " I 
was glad when they said unto me, Let us go into 
the house of the Lord " to the lame man who was 
laid at the beautiful gate of the temple and there 
found healing of soul and body. I wonder that 
men do not look upon the church as the hem of 
Christ's garment, by touching which they can find 
that virtue of the Blessed which every soul needs. 
All who enter the church and engage in its serv- 
ices with whole heart find that they have indeed 
touched the hem of Christ's garment to their 
healing. 

3. The sacraments are, in a sense, like to the 
hem of Christ's garment which the suffering 
woman touched that day. 

I doubt if there be anything that brings the soul 
nearer to Christ than it is brought in the sacrament 
of the Lord's Supper. There is nothing else which 
seems to bring into our lives more of His power. 
Before the Church was organized, before a single 
word of the New Testament had been written, even 
before the Old Testament was understood as hav- 
ing its fulfilment in Christ, before the great out- 
pouring of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost, Jesus took 
His disciples into an upper room and instituted 
this sacrament, saying, " Do this in remembrance 
of me." It is the hem of Christ's garment which 
all men recognize. 



THE HEM OP HIS GARMENT 



61 



There have been times when there has been cast 
about it a reverence almost false. Some of our 
own Scottish ancestors invested it with a solemnity 
so great and searching that men who deeply felt 
their un worthiness ran away from it* The Roman 
Church interpreted it in a way that was false and 
robbed it of its real power. The Lord's Supper is 
only a supper, its elements are only signs and sym- 
bols; but they are symbols through which Christ 
channels blessing to the soul that partakes. 

If this sacrament is the hem of Christ's gar- 
ment, if it is the outward thing by means of which 
Christ's power becomes more real to us and by 
means of which good comes to men, we are not to 
run away from it, but to press toward it as the 
woman of our story pressed toward Christ that she 
might be healed. The very "words of institu- 
tion" (1 Cor. 11: 23-28) are words of gracious 
invitation. They have often been read otherwise. 
Men have said, " Let a man examine himself and 
if he finds some sin in his soul, let him stay away." 
Such is not the meaning of the words of the Lord's 
servant. Their meaning is this? " Let a man ex- 
amine himself of his envy, pride, passion, dis- 
honesty, or any other sin that may mar his life, and 
as he finds his sickness of soul and its issue in 
shame, so let him eat and be healed," 

In closing I would put a question. What sore 
and shameful thing is this day draining your soul 
of strength and peace and hope? How many are 
under the burden of long-continued sins, so that 



62 THE HEM OF HIS GARMENT 



when they would do good, evil is present with 
them? who when they would break with some evil 
habit, find themselves bound with fetters? How 
many of us are victims of chronic weakness and 
distrust and have given up our practice of prayer? 
How many of these other sins are draining our 
lives of gladness and joy? 

The Gospel which I rejoice to bring is, that all 
may be healed. We may be healed now. We may 
find our healing in our touch of His garment, in 
our faith. The healing comes from the Christ. 
It is by His grace and His power and His cross. 
These things of which I have been speaking, espe- 
cially the sacrament of the Lord's Supper, are the 
borders of His garment through which good comes 
into our lives. 

Therefore if we are conscious of our weakness, 
as was this afflicted woman, if we wish to be healed, 
as she wished to be healed, if we wish to be done 
forever with the old habits of sin that are draining 
our lives, let us seek the Christ who came to save 
and lay hold upon Him. Let us seek Him by the 
help of these tangible and visible things which are 
as His garment, and we shall find His power com- 
ing into our lives, hear Him saying to us as He said 
to the woman whom He healed that day so long 
ago, "Daughter, be of good comfort; thy faith hath 
made thee whole." And having heard Him we 
shall enter into peace. 



VI 



A MESSAGE TO THE NEEDY 

Jesus saith unto her, Mary. She turned herself, and saith 
unto him, Rabboni; which is to say, Master. — John 20 : 16. 

IN giving a series of evening addresses on the 
above theme, it is proposed to study it under 
these headings, "A Message to the Needy," 
"A Message to the Doubter," and "A Message to 
the Perplexed." It is said in Mark that Jesus ap- 
peared first to Mary Magdalene, out of whom He 
had cast seven devils. Naturally the question 
arises, Why appear first unto her? We would 
have expected Him to appear first unto one of His 
disciples. Indeed He might have shown Himself 
first to one of those who accomplished His death. 
That He came first to Mary Magdalene would 
seem to be because her need was very great and 
He would bring comfort and cheer to her fearful 
and heavy heart. 

Mary is one of the most interesting characters 
connected with our Lord's ministry. She has a 
large place in Christian literature. She was called 
Magdalene after the town from which she came. 
The word Magdala, the name of the town of her 
birth, means " a watch-tower," and some one has 

63 



64 



A MESSAGE TO THE NEEDY 



suggested that in the name there is that which was 
prophetic of Mary of Magdala. As a watch-tower 
she was to stand and bear testimony to the resur- 
rection of her Lord. 

But even more interesting than her personal his- 
tory was the fact that Jesus came first to her, and 
when we consider that fact in the light of her past 
life in its relations to Christ we can gather some 
things helpful to ourselves as we think of the min- 
istry of our risen Lord. 

L Her life serves to show how deep a human 
life may sink. 

It may seem a harsh thing to say, but it is true 
and not hard to prove, that when a woman turns to 
the paths of evil she becomes the worst sinner in 
the world. The average woman is a little better 
than the average man, but we are reminded of the 
saying of the wise Solomon, "A man among a 
thousand have I found, but a woman among a thou- 
sand have I not found." The common morality 
of women is higher than that of mem They seem 
to be naturally more religious. They respond more 
readily to the appeal of the Gospel. In fact, the 
majority of professing Christians in the world are 
women. From this it is not to be argued that 
Christianity is effeminate, but only that women 
generally are more ready to accept the Gospel. But 
when a woman does depart from the paths of 
righteousness, her descent is more rapid and her 
degradation more awful. Mary Magdalene be- 
longed to this latter class. She is said to have 



A MESSAGE TO THE NEEDY 



65 



been possessed of seven devils, which is not to be 
taken necessarily as a definite number, for seven is 
the Hebrew number for completeness, and it prob- 
ably means that Mary was completely under the 
domination of the evil one. She had probably 
sunk so low that she had become what we now term 
a degenerate. Like the fabled poisoned maiden of 
the Greeks, whoever came near her found her 
breath to be blight and death. 

It would be interesting to know the cause of her 
downfall. It is probable that there was some 
false soul, who made a promise to her ear and 
broke it to her heart. This is the explanation of 
the downfall of most women who go in the ways of 
sin. It may have been due to poverty. Recent 
investigation on the part of the Vice Commission 
of Chicago showed that insufficient wages was the 
greatest single cause in the downfall of women. 

I digress to speak of this because I realize that 
the virtue of the nation will never rise higher than 
that of its women. Women and not men are the 
safeguards of the virtuous living and domestic 
purity of our land. It seems to me that the mes- 
sage which Christianity has to offer is twofold: 

First, that a living wage must be demanded by 
every girl who must work for her living. 

Second, that the Church insist upon a single 
standard of morals. 

But here one thing stands out, one thing as to 
which there can be no question, the awful depths 
to which a human soul may sink. 



66 



A MESSAGE TO THE NEEDY 



II. We see also in her experience that there is 
no condition beyond the power of Christ to heal. 

The old hymn puts the truth in familiar words, 
"Earth has no sorrow that heaven cannot heal. ,, 
So earth has no sin that Christ cannot heal. 
Mary's life apparently was completely mastered by 
Satan. No soul more hopeless than hers could 
possibly have been found in the whole realm of 
Palestine. The only other that could approach 
her was the woman of Samaria, and Jesus healed 
them both. If there were hope and salvation for 
her, there are hope and salvation for all. We 
never get so low as to be beyond His love. He 
was the friend of Publicans and sinners. None 
are so bad as to be beyond the purposes of His 
death. He is the propitiation for our sins, and not 
for ours only but for the sins of the world. No 
life is so wicked as to be beyond the reach of His 
redeeming power. If He could redeem Mary, He 
can redeem us. No one has wandered so far away 
that he cannot come back. Sometimes men and 
women get to the place where they feel, as did 
Macbeth in Shakespeare's great tragedy, " It is 
better to go on than to turn back." That is never 
true. It is always better to go back. Christ is 
greater than all our sins. " Where sin abounded, 
grace did much more abound." Earth has no sin 
that Christ cannot cure. 

III. We see in Mary's experience that Jesus 
comes first to those who need Him most. 

I think that to be the real reason why Christ ap- 



A MESSAGE TO THE NEEDY 67 



peared first to Mary. She needed Him most and 
He knew that she needed Him most. There is no 
more beautiful story in the Scriptures than this 
story in John's Gospel of Christ's appearing first to 
Mary Magdalene. She lingered longest at the 
grave. When the disciples and other friends of 
Jesus found the empty tomb, they were satisfied, 
but she was not. Nothing but Christ could ease 
her troubled heart. When the others had gone, 
she stooped and looked into the grave and saw two 
angels. The others did not see the angels, but 
Mary did. Where the need is greatest angels 
come. Where the heart's longing for Christ is 
deepest, He comes as He came to Mary. Jesus 
ever reveals Himself most clearly to those who 
need Him most. Mrs. Bacon, of Georgia, who 
was looking over the relics of a son who had died, 
found among them a stone picked up near Ober- 
ammergau, and on the stone she saw clearly out- 
lined the face of the Christ. Of this stone she 
had a photograph made, the likeness being wonder- 
fully lifelike. A copy of this photograph hangs 
in my home. On the back of the original photo- 
graph Mrs. Bacon has written these words, " Christ 
reveals Himself most clearly to those who need 
Him most." 

Why did Mary need Him most? It had been 
only a little while since the evil spirits had been 
cast out of her. She was still subject to tempta- 
tion. The demons themselves might return. She 
was a new convert. She needed not only the for- 



68 A MESSAGE TO THE NEEDY 



giveness ; she needed also the power. Nothing less 
than a living and present Christ could guarantee 
to her safety and protection from sin. If we be 
reconciled to God by the death of His Son, we shall 
be saved by His life. There is a lesson here for 
us all. The most needy people on earth are often 
new converts. Men and women who have just 
thrown off the shackles of sin, who desire to do 
good but find evil ever present with them, in such 
is a great and urgent need. The danger is the re- 
assertion of the power of old habits. We ought to 
take a definite interest in new converts. It is not 
a hard thing to win men to Christ ; but it is a hard 
thing to keep them won. The close of every 
church year, like this one, as we go over our roll, 
brings us face to face with the sad fact that some 
have gone back and walk with us no more. They 
have forsaken us because they love this present 
world. Our responsibility for them is very great, 
and it hurts one's heart to realize that some have 
drifted away. Jesus came first to this new con- 
vert. It was in the same spirit in which He later 
spoke to Peter in the familiar words, " Feed my 
lambs." In His approach to this needy one, He 
called her by name, a single word, but full of love 
and meaning, " Mary." He knows us each by 
name, The myriad saints of God, He names them 
all. We sometimes find it difficult to name those 
with whom we have often associated. People in 
this world sometimes lose their identity altogether. 
Only yesterday I read the gruesome item of news, 



A MESSAGE TO THE NEEDY 69 



that the body of some thirty unidentified dead 
in our city morgue had been reduced to ashes, after 
having been kept the length of time required by 
law, three years, I believe. If, after that length 
of time, they remain unclaimed, they are cremated. 
It is possible in this world to die unknown and to 
have no one care ; but there is not a life that Christ 
does not know. " He calleth his own sheep by 
name." 

IV. Mary's experience illustrates also that 
one's past life of sin may be the means of keeping 
one close to Christ. 

There are at least three ways in which the 
memory of the past life of sin may prove a bless- 
ing: 

First, this memory tends to keep us close to 
Christ. There are some who may be indifferent 
Christians, but the life that has trodden the dark 
way, that has known the power and faced the peril 
of sin, that sort of life keeps closest to Christ. 
This fact may account for what seems to be a deep 
spirituality and earnestness in those who have been 
lifted from the lowest depths of sin and shame. 

Second, the memory of the past forgiveness 
often develops the deepest love for the Master and 
the most intense longing for His presence and joy 
in fellowship with Him. 

Third, the memory of past forgiveness often 
makes us most faithful witnesses to the Master. 
It is a significant fact that Jesus gave Mary some- 
thing to do. That she might have an antidote for 



70 



A MESSAGE TO THE NEEDY 



the poison of temptation that would come to her, 
He said, " Go to my brethren, and say unto them, 
I ascend unto my Father, and your Father ; and to 
my God, and your God." 

Let us see in this woman what sin unrestrained 
will do. Let us see in her Christ's power to save 
unto the uttermost all that come unto Him. And, 
finally, let the memory of our past sins keep us 
close to Christ. 



VII 

A MESSAGE TO THE DOUBTER 

Then saith he to Thomas, Reach hither thy finger, and be- 
hold my hands; and reach hither thy hand, and thrust it 
into my side: and be not faithless, but believing. 

— John 20 : 27. 

IT is not possible to say anything new concern- 
ing this familiar scene of the meeting of Jesus 
and Thomas, in which we find the disciple 
transformed from skepticism into rapturous con- 
fession of trust and loyalty. It is a significant 
thing, however, that John makes this story the cli- 
max of his Gospel. The chapter is written to 
prove the resurrection, and here he reaches the very 
summit of his argument. His object in it all is to 
prove that Christ is God and Saviour. " These 
are written that ye might believe that Jesus is the 
Christ, the Son of God ; and that believing ye might 
have life through his name." The conviction of 
Thomas as to the resurrection of Jesus was, as 
John regarded it, the final and necessary proof that 
would convince all men that Jesus did indeed rise 
from the dead. Of Thomas we must think as rep- 
resenting a class, just as we think of Peter or Mary 
as representing a class. Thomas stands for that 
class of men whom we look upon as skeptics, or 

7i 



72 A MESSAGE TO THE DOUBTEE 



doubters, honest doubters, however, whose desire is 
to come out of the mists of uncertainty into the full 
light of conviction. Christ here deals with such a 
doubter. In His words, therefore, we are to find 
that which is for the help of a class and not for the 
help of one man merely. 

Christ's message to the doubter is certainly a 
timely message in these days which, because of 
their troubles and their problems, seem to foster 
doubt. It is my desire, I am sure, to make this a 
timely message. 

The doubt of Thomas was concerning the great- 
est thing in the world, the resurrection of Jesus 
from the dead. When the proofs of that resurrec- 
tion were furnished him, his whole attitude and 
spirit were changed. Rapturous confession sprang 
to his lips and ever afterwards he bore eloquent and 
convincing testimony to the vital fact of our re- 
ligion. In his experience we may find a clear path 
for our feet into the cheering light of perfect trust. 

I. Let us, first of all, look for a little at this 
man who doubted. 

Thomas was of a peculiar type of mind. He 
might be called a rationalist. His temperament we 
feel in his words, Except I see, I shall not be- 
lieve.' ' The same thing is manifest in earlier ex- 
periences. When Jesus would go again into Judea 
for the help of the sisters of the dead Lazarus, 
despite the assurances that no harm would come, 
Thomas felt that the worst would happen, for his 
words were, " Let us also go, that we may die with 



A MESSAGE TO THE DOUBTEE 73 



him." Those are not the words of a coward, but 
of a man who looked ever upon the dark side of 
things and doubted that good would come. On a 
later occasion when Jesus spoke of going away, 
referring to His death, the words of Thomas are, 
" Lord, we know not whither thou goest ; and how 
can we know the way ? " So when the body of 
Jesus was laid in the tomb of Joseph in the garden, 
and then a little later came the glad word that He 
had risen, the disciples gathered in the upper room 
to rejoice, but Thomas goes away by himself to 
nurse his grief and disappointment. The other 
disciples must have felt that it was a mistake for 
Thomas to forego the delights of the fellowship 
and worship of that upper room. It is neither 
wise nor right to give way to one's doubt. It is 
our plain duty to wait upon the services of the 
Church even though inclination be otherwise. 
There are times when we feel that we would prefer 
to be alone and nurse our troubles, but the words of 
the old story apply, " I being in the way, the Lord 
led me." It is in the worship of God's house and 
in fellowship with His people that God still makes 
approach to men. It is still as it was with those of 
old, Samuel, and David, and Isaiah, and finally to 
the man of our story, Thomas the doubter. 

When told by the other disciples that Jesus was 
risen, the reply of Thomas was almost an angry 
one : " Except I shall see in his hands the print of 
the nails, and put my finger into the print of the 
nails, and thrust my hand into his side, I will not 



74 A MESSAGE TO THE DOUBTEE 



believe.' ' It is proper enough to demand convinc- 
ing proof, but it is not right that we lay down cer- 
tain conditions on which alone we will believe and 
demand that God meet those conditions. It is our 
duty to ask God to make things clear. It is not 
right to say that unless God does certain things we 
will not believe ; for in so doing we are seeking to 
limit God and possibly bringing harm to ourselves. 
Sometimes we hear people say, " I have asked God 
to do a certain thing, and if He does it, I will be- 
lieve." If God fails to do as such people ask, then 
they lose faith. It is a wrong course. It was 
wrong of Thomas, and he realized the wrong of it 
as soon as he saw the Master. When Jesus bade 
him thrust his hand into His side, he did not do it, 
but cried out, " My Lord and my God." 

Concerning men like Thomas there are two 
things to be said in extenuation, things which will 
make us more charitable in our judgment of them. 
Thomas was of a temperament that entertained 
doubt, and ought not to be censured too severely 
for his fault. On the other hand he is to be com- 
mended because he returned to the upper room and 
thus put himself where Christ might show Himself 
to him and take away his doubts, 

II. Christ's dealing with the doubter. 

Jesus condescended to come back on the second 
Sabbath evening, and this He apparently did for 
the specific purpose of convincing Thomas. This 
would seem to be the meaning of the fact that the 
only conversation recorded is that with Thomas. 



A MESSAGE TO THE DOUBTEE 



75 



In passing, it may be pointed out that already the 
change of the Sabbath from the seventh to the first 
day of the week had taken place, and this, doubt- 
less, received the sanction of the Master. On this 
evening of the second Lord's Day the disciples were 
gathered together as they had been the week before, 
only this time Thomas was with them. The lesson 
is plain. If we have doubts, it is better for us still 
to go to church and to identify ourselves" with God's 
people, even though we be without their faith in 
the things which are taught and done. The wis- 
dom of this was felt by one of the old saints of 
God, who in an hour of trouble expressed himself 
in simple lines: 

" Thy saints are comforted, 

I know, and seek Thy house of prayer ; 
I, therefore go where others go, 
Though I find no comfort there." 

Then if we are still inclined to criticize Thomas 
we need to remember that the Master did not criti- 
cize him. He sympathized enough with the poor 
fellow to come back that He might reveal Himself, 
ready even to meet the conditions which Thomas 
laid down, that he might see and feel the wounds in 
hands and side. Though Thomas had said that he 
would not believe unless Christ should do this, he 
was convinced without it. 

III. Doubt changed to rapturous faith. 

Apparently without looking at the wounds of 
nails and spear Thomas cried out in full conviction, 



76 A MESSAGE TO THE DOUBTEE 



" My Lord and my God." Jesus said to him, not 
only as to the doubts of the past but as well with 
the trials of the future in mind, " Be not faithless, 
but believing." In other words, his exhortation 
was that he never give way to unbelief. Yield to 
faith and not to doubt, even give to faith the benefit 
of the doubt. There is vital truth here in connec- 
tion with all Christian experience. In reference to 
the future, as I have just said, the words of Jesus 
to Thomas were, "Be not faithless;" that is, do 
not give way to unbelief but cling to your Master, 
for faith is more than intellectual assent to a creed 
or a system. It is personal trust in Christ. Jesus 
said to Thomas, " No matter what comes, hold on 
to that trust." The vital point is this: we all have 
our doubts, some of the bitterest kind, but victory 
over them lies not in yielding to the doubts but to 
such faith as we have. " The bruised reed he will 
not break, the smoking flax he will not quench." 
That was the secret of the victory of Job, who, in 
the midst of his manifold trials, exclaimed, 
" Though he slay me, yet will I trust in him." 
That likewise was the secret of the father of the 
demoniac boy. He came to Jesus, saying, "If 
thou canst, help my boy." Jesus said, " If thou 
canst believe." The man did not believe much 
about Christ, but he yielded to such faith as he 
had, and prayed, " Lord, I believe ; help thou mine 
unbelief." It was by living up to the small faith 
that he had, and not by allowing his lack of faith 
to keep him back, that he won life for his boy and 



A MESSAGE TO THE DOUBTEK 



77 



for himself. So the Master laid down a law that 
applies to all Christians. Act upon such faith as 
we have and not upon our doubts, and we shall 
come through to victory. "If any man willeth to 
do his will, he shall know of the teaching, whether 
it is of God, or whether I speak from myself ." 

This truth, I take it, finds its expression in the 
last of the beatitudes of Jesus, " Blessed are they 
that have not seen and yet have believed. ,, Few 
were privileged to see the risen Christ in the flesh, 
but through the Christian centuries countless thou- 
sands without having seen yet have loved. The 
belief is based on sufficient evidence, and then it 
becomes a personal experience of life through trust 
in Jesus Christ. 

IV. Doubt turned to testimony. 

Concerning the after life of Thomas there are 
certain traditions. One of them is — and surely it 
may be believed — that his own experience of trans- 
formation from doubt to faith he used to bring 
many another soul out of darkness into light, for 
the traditions go on to say that as he went with the 
other disciples preaching Jesus and the resurrec- 
tion, he met many who, like the Greeks, scoffed at 
the story. To such Thomas told in simple terms 
the story of his own experience and convinced them 
of the truth of the story that Jesus did indeed rise 
from the dead. The supreme testimony to the 
truth of the teachings of the Christian religion is 
that of experience. Only a few weeks ago I was 
in conversation with one who frankly disavowed 



78 A MESSAGE TO THE DOUBTEE 



all belief in prayer. I made no attempt to argue 
with him. I only told him of a personal experience 
in which there was striking answer to prayer. 
That one experience seemed to satisfy him. 

Let me say, then, in closing, that the final proof 
of the risen Lord to those who doubt is the testi- 
mony of the life that is risen with Christ, the life 
lifted from the mire of sin and established upon the 
sure foundation of righteousness. 

There is one final lesson we would do well to 
learn from this experience of Thomas, for we shall 
all have our times of doubt and perplexity. We 
may be experiencing such hours now, but do not 
give way to them and do not be impatient in them. 
That week preceding this experience of Thomas 
must have seemed a century in length, but he 
waited day after day, then took his place among the 
disciples of Jesus and his Lord came. Sometimes 
we can only wait. "If the vision tarry, wait for 
it" Said the Psalmist, " Be still, and know that 
I am God." It is well to hope and quietly wait for 
the salvation of God, and if in patience we wait, we 
shall find, as did this doubter of long ago, that 
though sorrow endures for a night, joy cometh in 
the morning. 



VIII 



A MESSAGE TO THE PERPLEXED 

And it came to pass, that> while they communed together and 
reasoned, Jesus himself drew near, and went with them. 

— Luke 24: 15. 

THE ministry of our Lord in the forty days 
following His resurrection was not in 
constant fellowship with His disciples, 
but in occasional appearances. By what principle, 
if any, was Jesus guided in these occasional appear- 
ances? A close study will serve to show us. It 
would seem that He disappeared and reappeared 
not in any arbitrary way, but according to the call 
of great need on the part of His disciples. In 
every instance we find that He came to meet some 
special and urgent need. It was to the troubled 
Mary that He came, to the doubting Thomas, and 
to the penitent Peter. Now He appears to these 
two perplexed disciples as, on their way to 
Emmaus, they communed together and were sad. 

Upon this principle Christ works still, for while 
He is ever present with His disciples and, in fact, 
in His disciples by the Spirit, He is specially and 
most conspicuously present where hearts need Him 
most. This is the real explanation of the words 
spoken for the help of Paul, " My grace is sufficient 

79 



80 A MESSAGE TO THE PERPLEXED 

for thee." That is to say, however great the need 
may be the presence of Christ and the bestowal of 
His grace will meet that need. The words of our 
text, then, lead us to think of our Lord's ministry 
to the perplexed. 

Who these men were we do not know certainly. 
They were not of the apostles, but belonged to the 
larger circle of the believers in Jesus. One was 
Cleopas, whose wife ministered to Jesus as one of 
His earlier followers, and it is probable that she 
led her husband to Christ. The name of the other 
man is not given, hence there can be no certainty as 
to his identity. Some are of the opinion that he 
was Luke himself, and there is some ground for 
this opinion. It would seem that only an eye-wit- 
ness could tell the story in such minute detail. In- 
deed, he may here have received the inspiration 
which led him to write the Gospel which bears the 
name of Luke, for we read here that " beginning 
at Moses and all the prophets, he expounded unto 
them in all the Scriptures the things concerning 
himself." When later Luke wrote his Gospel he 
declares that his object is to set forth in order the 
things concerning Christ as the Saviour. At all 
events we have a beautiful picture in this scene, 
that while they walked together, one being more 
hopeful and the other somewhat dejected, Christ 
should come and join them. How true to this ex- 
perience is that of every disciple. In some moment 
that is darkest there comes and stands by him or, 
walks with him the Son of God. We think of the 



A MESSAGE TO THE PEEPLEXED 81 



experience of Paul in the time of hte greatest per- 
plexity as to where he should go. Christ gives him 
a vision that calls him into Macedonia. In another 
dark hour, when the whole way seemed uncertain, 
Christ again comes to him in a vision, saying, " Be 
of good cheer, Paul." There are some suggestions 
gleaned from this incident of which I wish to speak. 

I. It is a good thing to let the perplexed heart 
pour out its tale of woe to the full, for the very 
telling brings with it relief. 

" Give sorrow words ; the grief that does not speak 
Whispers the o'erfraught heart and bids it break." 

One cannot but be impressed with the patient 
way in which Jesus allowed these two troubled men 
to pour into His ears their own story of hope giv- 
ing way to doubt, its being rekindled, and going out 
at length into utter darkness. Why did He delay 
when He could instantly have cleared the matter? 
The answer is not far to seek. The telling of a 
thing is often in itself a comfort to the troubled 
heart. It is a lesson that we need to learn, that we 
be patient as we listen to the stories of woe poured 
into our ears. There are people who suffer great 
grief and tell their story to all they meet. With 
such we are tempted to be impatient, but let us re- 
member that the very telling of the story brings 
relief to the burdened heart. It is well, therefore, 
to learn to be patiently sympathetic at the recital 
of another's woes. This patience was character- 



82 A MESSAGE TO THE PEEPLEXED 

istic of Jesus. We see it manifested all through 
His life. He was a patient listener as well as a 
good talker. When people came to Him with their 
troubles, He did not rebuke them, but allowed them 
to pour out to Him the fullness of their stones, and 
then He spoke words of comfort and inspiration. 
The first lesson, therefore, is that we go to the Mas- 
ter with our troubles and in the fullest way pour 
out our hearts to Him whose ears are opened unto 
our cries and whose heart beats responsive to our 
needs. 

II. We learn, too, by holding on to the little 
faith we have in the midst of our perplexities. 

It is a significant thing that while these men had 
lost faith in the Messiahship of Christ and had lost 
faith too in His resurrection, they still believed that 
He was a good man. Even more than that, they 
believed Him to be " a prophet mighty in deed and 
word before God and all the people." While they 
had abandoned faith in Christ's resurrection and 
even in His Messiahship, they had not abandoned 
faith in His character. No matter what perplexi- 
ties may be in our minds as to Christ, honest doubts 
as to His deity and His virgin birth, if we accept 
the genuineness of His character as a good man 
and are open-hearted to the truth, we shall come at 
length to believe all the teachings concerning Him. 
Most of us are familiar with the religious history 
of Horace Bushnell. He had lost faith in the 
deity of Christ, but sat down to make a study of 
His character, still believing in His goodness. He 



A MESSAGE TO THE PEEPLEXED 83 

undertook to write on the matchless character of 
Christ. He ended by writing to show His belief 
in the deity and kingship of Christ, that " the char- 
acter of Jesus forbids His possible classification 
with men." 

Moreover, it is a vital principle of religion to 
hold on to what we believe no matter how small 
that faith is. To one of the seven churches of 
Asia Jesus said, " Strengthen that which remains 
and which is ready to die.' , He said too, "If ye 
have faith as a grain of mustard seed." He 
showed by several conspicuous examples that men 
like the father of the boy possessed with demons, 
the man who said, " Lord* I believe ; help thou mine 
unbelief," that the man who acts on faith no matter 
how small finds that faith itself a growing thing 
with vast possibilities leading to triumphant vic- 
tory. The men who in their perplexity said that 
He was a prophet mighty before God and man 
came at length to say, " He is our Lord," and to 
tell of His resurrection. 

III. We should learn from the example of the 
Master that the best way to clear up difficulties is 
to turn to the Word of God which is " a light unto 
our path and a lamp unto our feet," for the record 
is that Jesus turned to the Scriptures and " begin- 
ning at Moses and all the prophets, he expounded 
unto them in all the Scriptures the things concern- 
ing himself," and showed how it behooved Christ 
to suffer and die that He might enter into His 
glory. As He opened to them the Scriptures they 



/ 



84 A MESSAGE TO THE PERPLEXED 

said that their hearts burned within them. An 
honest, intelligent perusal of the Word of God will 
clear away most of the difficulties of life and bring 
light to the perplexed and troubled soul. We can- 
not refrain from pausing to say a word as to the 
value of the Bible in days like our own, in solving 
the perplexities of our day as well as the bringing 
of light to the individual puzzled soul. There is a 
revival of interest in the study of the Word to-day 
that we may understand the signs and significance 
of our times. An honest study of the Scriptures 
will reveal this, that while we may have peace and 
safety, so long as there is sin in the world and men 
lift up their heads against God's will and ignore 
His purposes and laws, we may expect wars and 
rumours of war. On the other hand, only when 
the world comes to accept the will of Christ, not 
only in its individual life but in its international re- 
lations, may we expect wars to cease. 

What is true of our age is true of the individual 
life. There is no experience of the soul that does 
not find a parallel in the experience of the writers 
of the Scriptures. Some years ago I read a work 
entitled " The Psalms in Human Life." In it the 
writer makes this very point, that David and other 
writers of the Psalms had run the whole round of 
human experience and that not a mood possessed 
the soul, from the deepest grief to the most ex- 
ultant joy, but that the same mood is found ex- 
pressed in the Psalms. What is true of that great 
book of the Bible is even more true of the Word 



A MESSAGE TO THE PERPLEXED 85 



as a whole. There is no phase of experience to 
which we cannot find a parallel and gain help and 
comfort when we turn to the Word as did the 
Master. 

IV. If we open our hearts to Christ and hold 
on to Him in the midst of all perplexities, He will 
turn our darkness into light and our dejection into 
glorious enthusiasm. Here these men stood at the 
parting of the ways. They were not sure as to 
who this visitor was, but they found help in His 
words. He made as though He would have gone 
further, but they constrained Him, saying, "Abide 
with us: for it is toward evening, and the day is 
far spent." The sequel is not known, but a great 
lesson to be found in it is this, that the opening of 
the heart to Christ and holding on to Him will not 
only clear up our difficulties but will transform our 
troubles into joy and enthusiasm. 

It may be noted, too, that Christ as a perfect 
gentleman does not force Himself on people. He 
made as though He would go further and they had 
to invite Him to stay. That is true still with all 
the possibilities of light and joy that are to be 
found in Christ, These are ours only when we 
open our hearts and constrain Him to come in that 
He may abide with us. 

After all, that which cleared up their difficulties 
and gave to them the burning heart and a deep and 
satisfying conviction was not so much what the 
Master said as it was the Master Himself. It is 
the genius of Christ that He has the power to stir 



86 A MESSAGE TO THE PERPLEXED 



in the souls of men a latent ambition and enthusi- 
asm, that He has power to make the heart burn. 
When Hazlitt, the English essayist and critic, was 
a young man, the poet Coleridge came to the Haz- 
litt home to visit the father of the future essayist. 
On his departure young Hazlitt walked several 
miles with Coleridge. In one of his essays he tells 
of the conversation that he had with Coleridge and 
all that the walk meant to him. The spirit of the 
poet made the world new to him, gave a new radi- 
ance to the sunset, put a new and finer note into the 
song of the bird. It was not the words of the poet 
that did so much, but the poet himself. So Christ, 
if we open our hearts to Him, can by His gracious 
presence stir in us powers and enthusiasms which 
will make us something of what these men became, 
convincing witnesses of Christ's resurrection and 
power. This ability to awaken enthusiasm in 
others is one of the marks of a great man and is 
found preeminently in Christ. Lord Roselynn in 
his " Life of Napoleon," tells us that even after 
Napoleon's defeat and in the days of his imprison- 
ment on St. Helena all who came into contact with 
him were roused to great enthusiasm. The hearts 
of men burned within them as they talked with the 
great Corsican. It was not the talk; it was the 
man behind the talk. Even so, greater than any- 
thing that has been written about Christ, greater 
even than the inspired words of the Scriptures 
which testify of Him, is the presence of Christ 
Himself to waken into life our dormant talents 



A MESSAGE TO THE PEEPLEXED 87 



and to send us out to be eloquent and powerful wit- 
nesses to Him. There are many instances that 
might be cited in illustration of this truth. Only 
one need be given. The only explanation of such 
a character and life as that of Dwight L. Moody is 
that the man in a large way opened his heart to 
Christ, took Him in His fullness, and Christ not 
only dispelled all doubts but developed him into 
one of the most gracious and powerful evangelists 
of the last century. As the presence of some great 
artist stirs in one the artistic instinct, and as fellow- 
ship with a military genius stirs the martial spirit, 
so the presence of Christ stirs within us the pos- 
sibilities of what we may become and what we may 
be for Him, and sends us out to be evangelists to 
perplexed and troubled hearts. He makes it pos- 
sible for us to share the experiences and the privi- 
leges of these first disciples, to say that we too have 
seen the Lord and that our hearts burned within us 
as He talked with us and opened to us in all the 
Scriptures the things concerning Himself. 



IX 



HEROIC WOMANHOOD 



And the angel said unto her, Fear not, Mary: for thou hast 
found favour with God. — Luke i : 3a 



UKE, more than any other Gospel writer, 



records the varied and loving ministries of 



-* — * women, The reasons for this are interest- 
ing. By profession Luke was a physician, and in 
the work of his profession came into close touch 
with the lives of women. Again, when he was with 
Paul on his missionary journeys, Paul left him to 
act as pastor of the church at Philippi, a church 
which, it will be recalled, had its birth in a meeting 
for prayer. Those who arranged and carried on 
that meeting by the riverside were women. The 
best known of these women was Lydia, who doubt- 
less influenced the life of Luke. Then, too, Luke 
was a man of chivalrous nature. He was writing 
his Gospel for humanity, and naturally and prop- 
erly women and children are given their place. 
Luke alone gives the songs of the three women, 
Anna, Elizabeth, and Mary. He alone speaks of 
Susanna and Joanna, who ministered to our Lord 
of their substance. It is Luke alone who gives us 
that touching story of the nameless woman who 
bathed the feet of 1 Jesus with her tears and wiped 




88 



HEEOIC WOMANHOOD 89 



them with the hairs of her head. He tells, too, of 
the widows of Sarepta and Nain. His Gospel 
opens with the song of a woman and closes with 
the picture of the faithful women coming before 
the break of day to the sepulcher that they might 
anoint the body of Jesus, 

It is not a matter of wonder, therefore, that he 
tells us more than any other of her who was most 
highly favoured of God, Mary the mother of our 
Lord. We probably have undervalued Mary be- 
cause the Church of Rome has gone to the extreme 
of exalting her to a throne equal to, if not above, 
that of her Son, offering unto her a worship which 
in its essence is idolatry. Because we feel that 
there has been an extreme on one side we need to 
be careful lest we go to an extreme on the other and 
fail to value Mary as we ought. Surely we ought 
not to fail to honour her who found such favour 
with God. She must ever be regarded as God's 
ideal, a type of heroic womanhood. God made her 
His instrument for bringing His Son into the world 
because she had found favour in His sight. In her 
life we find certain qualities which made it fitting 
that she be chosen to become the mother of the 
Holy One. In a study of the life and character of 
Mary we can find not only an ideal wife and 
mother, but as well learn what we owe to our 
mothers as this finds illustration in the profound 
devotion of Jesus to her who bore Him. 

What were the things in her character which 
caused her to find favour with God ? The answer 



90 HEROIC WOMANHOOD 



to this question will be the burden of the message 
this morning. 

L Her life was marked by a deep and quiet 
spirit of submission to God. Her becoming the 
mother of Jesus, who was conceived by the Holy 
Ghost, meant, for a time at least, the loss of her 
good name. There was a time when her friends 
and even her affianced husband questioned her 
character. Joseph, we read, was minded to put 
her away. Through all her life she was reproached 
of those who did not believe the story of the birth 
of Jesus. Yet facing all this, fully realizing what 
it meant, her answer to the angel was, " Behold the 
handmaid of the Lord; be it unto me according to 
thy word." This conception of herself as a hand- 
maid of the Lord is one of the most beautiful con- 
ceptions of the Christian life, and that whether it 
be the life of a man or a woman, for the word 
" handmaid " means a servant who stands at the 
right hand of master or mistress ready to serve. 
The Psalmist puts it, "As the eyes of a maiden 
look unto the hand of her mistress; so our eyes 
wait upon the Lord our God." No more beautiful 
tribute can be paid to any woman than to say of 
her that she was a handmaid of the Lord, nor to 
any man than to say that he was a servant of God. 

The spirit of submission which is so marked in 
Mary is seen not only in her reception of the 
angel's message. It is seen again at the wedding in 
Cana of Galilee, where she said to the servants, 
speaking of her Son, " Whatsoever he saith unto 



HEROIC WOMANHOOD 91 



you, do it." Though the honoured mother of 
Jesus, she bowed in implicit obedience to His com- 
mands, a spirit which brings any life into favour 
with God and makes it of value in the service of 
God. This same spirit was in her through all the 
years. She gave quiet submission to the will of 
God for herself and for her Son, suffering Him to 
go out to His high ministry, realizing that soon 
He must meet the inevitable cross. Her spirit was 
that of submissive service, and service ever marks 
motherhood. Who more than a mother attains 
unto the standard of greatness which Christ set up: 
" Whosoever will be great among you, let him be 
your servant " ? 

II. Mary's life was one of genuine goodness. 

She is called the Virgin, which is but another 
term for purity. It must have been her real piety 
which, more than anything else, caused her to find 
favour with God. Assuming the necessity for the 
incarnation, there were but two ways in which 
Christ could come into the world, by creation or by 
birth. That He might possess a true human na- 
ture and so identify Himself fully with the needs 
of humankind, it was necessary for Him to be 
" born of a woman." Of the descendants of David 
God would select for such an office none but one of 
the most exalted character and purest life. This 
God would do not only that the Son of Man might 
be of honourable birth among men, but as well that 
He be properly reared and trained. Surely, then, 
that home in Nazareth must have been an ideal 



92 HEEOIC WOMANHOOD 



home, and, as in most homes, its atmosphere was 
created by the mother. I have sometimes thought 
— and I say it with reverence — that that home in 
Nazareth must have been like that in which the 
great Lincoln grew up. It was like it in its pov- 
erty, and like it too because the dominant influence 
was that of the mother. Joseph, the reputed father 
of Jesus, would seem to have been only an ordinary 
man. Some have seen in his life something of 
shiftlessness. Like the father of Lincoln, he seems 
to have moved from place to place. It was his 
mother who so trained him that he increased in 
wisdom and in favour with God and man. Doubt- 
less it was the mother, too, who instructed the boy 
Jesus in the law and wisdom of the Old Testament, 
and how well she performed her task is evident 
from the fact that as a boy of twelve Jesus aston- 
ished by His knowledge the doctors in the temple. 
I believe that, speaking after the manner of men, 
the gracious spirit and gentleness which marked the 
character and life of Jesus were due to the instruc- 
tion and example of a godly mother. Even as a 
boy there was that in His life which caused Him to 
find favour with men. He must have been a gen- 
tlemanly boy, and we know Him to have been a 
true gentleman when He became a man. His con- 
sideration for women and His kindness to children, 
His appreciation of beauty in bird and flower, these 
He must have learned from His mother. Teachers 
tell us in our own day that it is not difficult to rea- 
son as to the character of the homes from which 



HEEOIC WOMANHOOD 



93 



their pupils come. In its simple and winsome 
beauty the early life of Jesus gives evidence of the 
godliness of His home and the genuine goodness of 
His mother. There is no finer heritage that we 
can give to our children than that of godly parental 
instruction and example. It is beyond question 
that nearly all the great of earth have attributed 
their greatness in achievement, and especially in 
character, to a godly father or mother, either or 
both. We conclude, therefore, that it was the 
sterling worth of this woman that caused her to 
find favour with God. 

III. Consideration for others was also a 
marked characteristic of Mary's life. 

Take, for example, her conduct at the wedding 
in Cana of Gaiiiee. She was only a guest and yet 
when she saw that the obligations of hospitality 
were about to break down, she took in the situation 
and acted for relief. That the poverty of the 
home might not be exposed, and also that the em- 
barrassment of the host might be relieved, she 
slipped from the room and spoke to Jesus, saying, 
" They have no wine," Then she goes to the serv- 
ants and tells them that whatever He commands 
they are to do. All this was done from something 
higher than a sense of duty. She was not respon- 
sible for the situation, but with quiet consideration 
for the feelings of others she did what she could 
to interest her Son that He might use His power to 
bring about a change in the unfortunate situation. 

We see this same consideration manifested later 



94 HEKOIC WOMANHOOD 



in Capernaum. There Jesus was preaching and 
through all the day the crowds pressed upon Him 
so that He had no time to eat or rest. With a 
mother's solicitation she sent a messenger with the 
request that He spare Himself. The incident has 
often been interpreted as one which showed lack of 
faith on Mary's part, to indicate that she even ques- 
tioned the sanity of Jesus. That question did arise 
in the minds of His brethren (we find it in the fifth 
chapter of John), but it never found a place in 
Mary's mind. The incident described by John is 
wholly different from the one which took place at 
Capernaum. There Mary was the active one and 
her whole activity was prompted by her considera- 
tion for others, and especially for her Son. Thus 
wherever we see her we find evidence of unselfish 
consideration for others. That ever marks parent- 
hood, and more particularly motherhood. On the 
seal of one of the insurance companies of America 
there is a picture of a mother bird in deadly combat 
with a serpent which has been trying to destroy the 
young birds in the nest. Underneath the picture 
are these words, " We live and die for those we 
love." It has always seemed to me that this is the 
very spirit of motherhood, to live for others, and, 
if need be, to die for others. The true mother, like 
the Lord Himself, comes not to be ministered unto, 
but to minister, and to give her life a ransom for 
others. 

IV. In Mary there was a quiet heroism that 
caused her to find favour with God. 



HEEOIC WOMANHOOD 95 



It is true that she was most highly honoured of 
women, and that all generations shall call her 
blessed, yet her honour and glory were not without 
pain and sacrifice. There is nothing more remark- 
able than her heroic self-control as she faced the 
most trying situations in life. For one thing she 
restrained herself when she was eager to speak. 
Of Christ, at least in His early life, she knew more 
than any one else. She had been visited by the 
shepherds who told her of the song of the angels. 
It was to her, guided by the star in the east, that 
the wise men came with their gifts. She presented 
Jesus in the temple, when the old prophet Simeon 
and the prophetess Anna, inspired of God, pro- 
nounced Him the chosen of Heaven. When He 
was being denounced as a false prophet and accused 
of fanaticism, how her heart must have strained to 
the bursting point in her desire to tell the things 
she had heard. " But his mother kept all these 
sayings in her heart." We can scarcely realize 
how hard it must have been to hold her peace when 
her Son's character was questioned, when her own 
virtue was at stake, yet, like her Son, she opened 
not her mouth. Then how she suffered, too, be- 
cause she could not fully understand this strange 
child who had been so strangely given. I have 
sometimes thought that here is one of the most 
trying experiences of a mother, the realization that 
to her son have been given opportunities and tal- 
ents beyond her gift, such indeed as will make it 
impossible for her to understand to the full the 



96 



HEROIC WOMANHOOD 



thoughts that are given to him. This is not always 
true as to ordinary children. It was true of Jesus. 
In this, too, we have one of the difficulties which 
must be faced by those who instruct youth and by 
that class of women whom we call stepmothers. 
These latter in many instances deserve an apprecia- 
tion equal to that of the real mother. When in the 
providence of God the mother is taken from her 
child and another comes to take her place, she must 
be the real mother with two difficulties added, 
namely, that her place is not so easy, and her under- 
standing of those whom she would mother not so 
instinctive. We would not fail to place upon the 
brow of a stepmother, so called, but who is a 
mother in reality, the garland wreath of honour 
which is her due when having taken another's place, 
she brings up children in the nurture and admoni- 
tion of the Lord. 

Again, how quietly did this mother suffer as she 
saw her Son go out into the world, realizing, as she 
did very early in His life, that He was soon to be 
in the thick of the hard battle of life and she could 
not be with Him. How keen must have been her 
suffering as she saw Him buffeted, persecuted, mis- 
understood, and maligned! Her suffering must 
have been second only to His as she realized how 
He had come to His own and His own received 
Him not, as she saw Him despised and rejected of 
men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. 
Then how marvellous was her self-restraint as she 
stood that day at the cross. She witnessed the 



HEBOIC WOMANHOOD 97 



crucifixion of her boy, she saw the agony of it all. 
She stood so near the cross and its victim that she 
could hear His dying whisper, " Woman, behold 
thy son." Her heart was broken that day at the 
foot of the cross even as the heart of Jesus was 
broken on it. Yet there was no wild grief, no 
lamentation and wailing in which some indulge in 
trying hours. Though her heart was breaking, 
she heroically controlled herself, wore her sack- 
cloth within, and bore, with that dignity which 
made her the worthy mother of her Son, the woe 
of the most awful tragedy in all the world's his- 
tory. There is no heroism in the world to-day, in 
this tragic time of war, greater than the heroism of 
women, especially of mothers. The other day a 
gentleman said that next to the boys in the trenches 
those who are doing most to win the war are 
women, those who are the mothers and wives and 
sisters and sweethearts of our soldiers. I think 
that all will agree with that statement. The quiet 
and cheerful spirit in which the women of England 
are bearing their grief inspired Grace Richmond to 
write her little story of " The Whistling Mother." 
But the whistling mother is found in America as 
well as in England. We have already seen this 
heroism in the mothers who have been called upon 
to mourn for their sons and we shall continue to 
see it. One of the most profound impressions 
made upon me as I was among the soldiers at 
Camp Lee was that made by the mothers as they 
said farewell to sons who had been ordered to cross 



98 HEBOIC WOMANHOOD 



the sea. Often these mothers smiled through their 
tears. I could not but think of those words of this 
mother of Jesus, " Mary kept all these things and 
pondered them in her heart." Doctor Giles tells 
of meeting last summer an English woman who 
had sent seven sons to France, and some had fallen 
in battle. With high heroism that mother said, 
" If I had seven more, I would send them all." 
Such a spirit as that cannot be defeated, and when 
this war is over, and victory is ours, this nation 
will honour more than her soldiers. There 
will, I hope, be erected somewhere a monument to 
the heroic spirit and ministry of our splendid 
American women. 

Looking at the story from the standpoint of the 
son, we see in the attitude of Christ toward His 
mother what should be our attitude of love and 
devotion to our mothers. There is a mistaken 
view that Jesus showed Himself somewhat indif- 
ferent to His mother, almost rude. There is no 
ground for such a view. It seems to have been 
due to a misunderstanding of His words, " He that 
doeth the will of my Father, the same is my 
brother, and sister, and mother." The true mean- 
ing of those words is almost exactly the opposite of 
that commonly taken. When Jesus wished to 
show His profound love for those who did His 
Father's will, He said that they were to Him like 
His own mother. It was Christ's highest expres- 
sion of love, and the lesson of it is to the effect that 
by doing the will of God we may enter into the 



HEEOIC WOMANHOOD 99 



love of Christ even as did His mother. Christ not 
only honoured her, but His tenderness and chivalry 
toward all who were in need, women, children, and 
all unfortunate ones, were the outgrowth of His 
devotion to His mother. He who has the right 
feeling toward his own mother will respect woman- 
hood in general ; the life and virtue of any woman 
are safe in the hands of him who honours and loves 
his mother. The wonderfully tender consideration 
of Jesus for His mother is seen at its best in the 
experience of the cross. There in His woe, dying 
for the world in sin, He did not forget her who had 
brought Him into the world, but made provision 
for her care in old age by committing her to the 
keeping of the youngest and best loved of His dis- 
ciples: " Son, behold thy mother." " Woman, be- 
hold thy son." Of her it was said, "All generations 
shall call thee blessed." This benediction has 
fallen on Mary, and not on her only, but on all true 
women, who, like her, have found favour with God 
through yielding their lives to Him. 



X 



THE SOUL'S RETURN AND WELCOME 

And he arose, and came to his father. But when he was yet 
a great way off, his father saw him, and had compassion, 
and ran, and fell on his neck, and kissed him. 

—Luke 15 : 20. 

I HAVE spoken of the three great chapters 
which deal with the story of a soul, its awak- 
ening, its hunger, and this the final chapter 
having to do with the soul's return and welcome. 
The immediate cause of the return was hunger, the 
certainty that starvation awaited him unless he 
made some change. He realized, too, that the one 
place where he could find food was home, showing, 
I believe, that there was a lingering consciousness 
in his heart that there he was still loved, that one 
place of refuge was open to him in his hunger for 
food and that deeper hunger of the heart for love. 
The experience symbolizes the hunger that comes 
to every soul that is away from God, a hunger that 
means utter starvation and death of the soul. This 
dire fate staring him in the face, and the home in 
the distance with its memories and inviting appeal, 
lead him to action which is immediate. His reso- 



THE SOUL'S BETUBN AND WELCOME 101 



lution once formed is not for a moment abandoned, 
but carried through to the end. He does not wait 
for some one to come and take him back, nor until 
his appearance and condition have been made bet- 
ter. He simply went home as he was and there 
was welcomed as one who had been dead and was 
alive again, who had been lost and was found. 

The two great facts of the story, the return and 
the welcome, with their meaning in the life of the 
soul and its needs, I would deal with this evening. 

I. The soul's return. 

It is to be observed, first of all, that the action 
was voluntary. His departure had been willful, 
his return likewise must be of his own volition. 
He must act of his own accord. In the beginning 
of these studies I showed that at this point the 
parable differs from those of the lost sheep and the 
lost coin. The shepherd could go after the lost 
sheep until he would find it. The woman, too, 
sought her silver until she found it. But the 
father could not bring back the son; he must act 
for himself. A beast may be led back, even forced 
back. A lifeless thing, like a coin, can be me- 
chanically replaced in its former position; but a 
man is neither a beast nor a lifeless thing. A man 
is a soul and his will is never forced. 

This is in keeping with the teachings of the 
Scriptures everywhere. God never forces any one 
back once they have gone away from Him. No 
one can take you by force and make you a Chris- 
tian, not even the Almighty God. If by any chance 



102^ THE SOUL'S KETUKN AND WELCOME 



you are dragged into the outward relationship of a 
Christian man or woman, your Christianity is not 
genuine. If you should unite with the Church, ac- 
cepting the form of godliness merely to please a 
loving parent, or to conform to the will of a parent 
whom you fear to defy, your Christianity is plainly 
spurious. Of course I do not mean any to take 
from this that a parent should make no effort to 
lead a child toward Christ and the Church. The 
child should be required, whether he will or not, to 
go to the services of the church, especially those 
of the Sabbath-school, because he is not yet pre- 
pared to choose for himself. In this there may be 
compulsion, but in the matter of becoming a Chris- 
tian compulsion has no place. That can be only 
the result of one's own act. 

Yet here it must not be overlooked that in a very 
real sense this father did go after his son. The 
winged messenger of the father's love followed 
him through all that perilous and checkered career 
in the far country. Though the son may not al- 
ways have realized it, though he may at times have 
utterly forgotten it, the love of the father followed 
him and ever and anon rose to consciousness until 
at length it led him back to the father's house. It 
followed him like a guardian angel wherever he 
went. In his sleep it visited him in dreams of the 
days of childhood. Even in places of vice it sang 
to him the memories of the days of his innocency. 
In the lonely and barren places as he fed the swine 
it must have come to him. When others forsook 



THE SOUL'S RETURN AND WELCOME 103 



him and he was left by the swine-troughs in his 
filth and his husks and his fever, the father's love 
did not forsake him. The father's love is the love 
of the All-Father, of which Jesus said, " Having 
loved his own, he loved them unto the end." In 
his hunger this love told him of bread in abundance. 
When winds were cold, it spoke to him of the robe 
for his nakedness. In his loneliness it would hold 
before him the vision of the feast and the fellow- 
ship in his father's house. He had thrown away 
every other part of his inheritance. Here was that 
which he could not throw away. The father's love 
is sure to prevail. " How shall I give thee up, 
Ephraim? " But that love, great and tender as it 
was, could not force him back. Love is like a 
child; it can plead, but it cannot compel. Yet its 
power is in its pleading, in its weakness. To that 
love the wayward son yields and yielding to that 
love redeemed him. The teaching as to the life of 
man in his relations to God is plain. That which 
makes men Christians is their yielding to the love 
of God in Christ that God may have His way in 
their lives. 

Again, his return was with free and full confes- 
sion of sin: "I have sinned against heaven, and 
before thee, and am no more worthy to be called 
thy son." When the soul returns to God, it must 
come in the way of confession ; for God has assured 
us in the words of the apostle, " If we confess our 
sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, 
and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness." 



104 THE SOUL'S KETUKN AKD WELCOME 



" When I kept silence, my bones waxed old through 
my roaring all the day long. For day and night thy 
hand was heavy upon me: my moisture is turned 
into the drought of summer. I acknowledge my 
sin unto thee, and mine iniquity have I not hid. I 
said, I will confess my transgressions unto the 
Lord; and thou forgavest the iniquity of my sin." 

Notice, too, that the prodigal does not seek to 
throw the blame of his sins on others. He does 
not say, "If it had not been for my companions, if 
it had not been for the peculiar circumstances, if I 
could only have had a different sort of employment, 
it would all have been otherwise with me." But no 
such excuses does he seek to make. He takes the 
blame all upon himself: " I have sinned." 

Moreover he does not strive to lessen his guilt: 
" I have sinned against heaven, and in thy sight." 
He made no attempt to soften or smooth. He did 
not say, " Father, you remember my weakness." 
He did not by a single word call attention to his 
peculiar failings and shortcomings. He said only, 
" I have sinned." In our day there is a sickly 
sentimentality about sin. Sins are spoken of as 
faults and failings and weaknesses and diseases and 
wild oats. Let us have sympathy for the sinful 
soul, considering ourselves lest we also be tempted ; 
but remember that these things which we call by 
other names are sins, and unless God forgives them 
they will drown us in perdition. Our wild oats are 
crimes against God and Heaven, and if we have 
wandered away, it is not for us to seek to minimize 



THE SOUL'S RETURN AND WELCOME 105 



it, but admit before God that we have sinned, pray- 
ing with the Psalmist, " For thy name's sake, O 
Lord, pardon mine iniquity; for it is great." 

If God will forgive your sins, your friends will 
forgive you and will think all the more of you for 
being manly about this thing and confessing it, and 
if they do not, their failure will show that they are 
without the spirit of Christ. 

Also it would appear that that which distresses 
the prodigal most is the enormity of his sin against 
God. " I have sinned against heaven." He had 
sinned against himself, against his friends, his 
home, his opportunities; but his keenest distress 
arises from the realization of his sin against God. 
It is the fact that it is against God that makes sin a 
crime. It is sorrow for sin because of its enormity 
that constitutes real repentance. "A broken and a 
contrite heart, O God, thou wilt not despise." 
" Repentance unto life is a saving grace, whereby a 
sinner, out of a true sense of his sin, and apprehen- 
sion of the mercy of God in Christ, doth, with grief 
and hatred of his sin, turn from it unto God, with 
full purpose of, and endeavour after new obedi- 
ence." 

Once more I would have you note that the con- 
fession which he resolved to make was never fin- 
ished. He had purposed saying, " I am no more 
worthy to be called thy son: make me as one of 
thy hired servants." Those last words he never 
said. Before his lips could frame them his 
father's tears had washed away his sins and he had 



106 THE SOUL'S KETUBN AND WELCOME 



kissed them into forgetfulness. He did not com- 
plete his confession because he could not. That is 
one of the remarkable things about an honest con- 
fession; it is never finished, but lost in the loving 
forgiveness of God which overwhelms the sinner. 
When Nathan's ministry to David brought convic- 
tion, David cried, " I have sinned," but got little 
further, for the prophet spoke saying, " The Lord 
also hath put away thy sin." When Peter went 
out that night and wept bitterly, he did not finish 
his confession. He resolved that if ever again he 
should see his Lord, he would pour out his soul in 
acknowledgment of his guilt, but no opportunity 
came until after Jesus had risen from the dead. 
Then He sent to Peter a message of His love and 
Peter's soul was filled with peace and joy, the peace 
and joy which only a consciousness of sin forgiven 
can bring to the hearts of men and women. Sev- 
eral times Paul seemed about to make confession, 
but he never got through, for he was lost again and 
again in the amazing love of God. Once he began 
by saying, " I am not worthy to be called an apostle, 
for I persecuted the church " ; but he forgot to 
finish, being conscious of the forgiveness of God 
in Christ. To use his own words, " It pleased 
God to reveal his Son in me." Again he wrote, 
" This is a faithful saying, and worthy of all accep- 
tation, that Christ Jesus came into the world to 
save sinners; of whom I am chief." Beyond this 
he does not go; confession breaks. The prodigal 
had this experience, and you, too, have had it. 



THE SOUL'S RETURN AND WELCOME 107 



You have gone to God in prayer to tell Him all 
your sins and to review before Him their history; 
but you never finished what you had thought to do, 
for your thought was lost in the amazing thought 
of the love of God, the love manifested in His Son, 
who while we were yet sinners died for us. 

II. This leads me to speak, in the second place, 
of the soul's welcome. 

1. He was met by his father before he got home 
and forgiven and welcomed. I have said that the 
father could not go after his son and bring him 
back, that likewise God cannot force a sinner back 
into fellowship with Him. But while God cannot 
go after a sinning soul and bring it back, He does 
go to meet the returning sinner. " When he was 
yet a great way off, his father saw him, and had 
compassion, and ran, and fell on his neck, and 
kissed him." I want to tell you where God meets 
the sinner. He meets him at Calvary. That is 
the long way that God has come to meet the sinner. 
He meets him there in the death of His Son. The 
pouring out of the blood of Christ is but the shed- 
ding of the tears of God over sin. The death of 
Christ reveals to us the God who suffers in the 
straying of men and women into sin. The cross is 
the meeting ground of the penitent sinner and the 
loving Father. There the Pilgrim, in Bunyan's 
allegory, is pictured as losing the load of sin from 
his weary shoulders. If you will but start home 
to-night, that is where God will meet you. He will 
wash you in the blood of the Lamb. He will re- 



108 THE SOUL'S RETURN AND WELCOME 



member your iniquities against you no more for- 
ever. 

2. The returning sinner received more than he 
expected in the way of welcome. 

All he had asked was that he might be a servant. 
Instead he was restored to sonship with all the 
honours and privileges and joys that sonship carries 
with it. He got more than he had anticipated. 
What was true as to the prodigal is true as to every 
sinner who finds his way back to God. All such 
receive far more than they had hoped or dreamed. 
In one of his books Doctor W. R. Watkinson has a 
chapter on " The Surprises of the Christian Life." 
In it he shows that there will always be glad and 
joyful surprises awaiting the Christian both in the 
world which now is and that which is to come. 
" Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither hath 
entered into the heart of man the things which God 
hath prepared for them that love him.' , This is a 
hint as to the great and glad surprises that await 
those who come to God in penitence and faith. 
They will be surprised at the power of their God, 
at the joy springing up in their souls like a foun- 
tain of pure water, at the love which is lavished 
upon them. You look back over this year that is 
gone, and you recall the glad surprises that God 
gave you and how beyond all expectation was the 
grace which sustained you in your time of trouble. 
Not long since a friend told me how wonderfully 
God had sustained her beneath her burden, how 
great had been His mercy in the light of her un- 



THE SOUL'S BETTTBN AND WELCOME 109 



worthiness. In all confidence, therefore, I declare 
to sinful and sinning men and women, that if you 
will return to God, you will receive more than you 
can ever expect or even hope for. 

Now precisely the opposite of this is true as to 
sin. Sin makes its promise to the ear and breaks 
it to the heart. Sin never fulfills its promises. It 
never pays one hundred cents on the dollar. You 
never get from a life of sin what it promised you. 

There is a way which seemeth right unto a man, 
but the end thereof are the ways of death." 
" What fruit had ye then in those things whereof 
ye are now ashamed? for the end of those things 
is death." Investing in sin is like investing in 
mining stock — and I speak from experience. Mark 
Twain said, "A mine is a hole in the ground owned 
by a liar." That is what sin is. It is a hole owned 
by the devil who is the father of lies. He tells you 
that it is rich in precious metals. If you invest in 
it all that you get is a piece of fancy paper fit only 
for the children to play with. As to the mine it- 
self, if you go down into it, you suffer a bruised 
body and come back with a dirty face for your 
trouble. That is a picture of sin. It is a dark hole 
in which we are bruised and soiled. It is a disap- 
pointment to all who invest. He who serves the 
world and sin never gets what is promised him, 
while the trusting and penitent soul is ever sur- 
prised at the greatness of God's gifts. 

3. The sonship to which the prodigal was re- 
stored was a higher one than that which he enjoyed 



110 THE SOUL'S KETUKN AND WELCOME 



before he left home. That may not have been the 
case in the actual experience of this wayward son, 
but it is the truth as to those who return to God 
from a life of sin. The spiritual sonship which is 
through Christ Jesus is higher than the natural son- 
ship of creation. This son was a son in a finer way 
after his return than he was before he left his 
father's house to go into the far country. The 
teachings of the parable are plain: the sinner is 
God's child, the man who is wandering away from 
God and who is this hour living in the far country 
in misery and shame is still a son of God, but when 
he comes back to God he is a child in a higher 
sense, with more blessed privileges and more joyful 
fellowship. 

The prodigal was a son before he left his father's 
house, he was a son during his stay in the far coun- 
try, but the relationship brought no joy to either 
father or son. To the father it meant grief rather 
than joy. But after the return what a difference! 
Then there was mutual joy in the fellowship of 
father and son. Sonship is, as I have said, of two 
kinds. There is natural sonship and there is a son- 
ship which is spiritual. By birth we are all sons of 
God according to nature, but when we come to God 
in penitence we are received into the family and 
have a right to all the privileges of the sons of God. 

It is not, of course, that the son would not have 
enjoyed this if he had not gone away. It is not 
that one must sin to appreciate the love of God. It 
is that despite his sin he was received into as high 



THE SOUL'S EETUBN AND WELCOME 111 



favour with his father as though he had been away 
on some mission of honour, as though he had been 
a returning conqueror. Mark the badge of sonship 
showing complete restoration, the robe, the ring, 
the feast, all go to show how complete was the 
favour into which he was received. 

The robe is the symbol of righteousness. It is 
that with which all our sins are covered. We are 
clothed with the righteousness of Christ. The ring 
is the symbol of favour. The signet ring of the 
king means that the one permitted to wear it enjoys 
special favour at the king's hand. So the sinner 
comes again into the favour of God. His favour 
is life and His blessing maketh rich and addeth no 
sorrow therewith. 

The sandal or shoe is the symbol of royalty. 
Only princes wore sandals. " Ye are a royal 
priesthood, a chosen people." Sinners enter into 
the aristocracy of God, the only one that is su- 
premely worth while. 

4. The welcome was one of joy. The feast is 
the symbol of joy. Of genuine redemption it is 
ever true that it is received with joy. This is ever 
the experience of those whose lives are given us on 
the pages of the New Testament, men such as those 
of Samaria and the eunuch of Ethiopia. And how 
shall I describe the joy of the son, the joy of the 
homesick soul who has got home ? Have you ever 
been homesick? If you have not, there is some- 
thing wrong with you. God pity the youth who 
never gets homesick. If you have been homesick, 



112 THE SOUL'S RETURN AND WELCOME 



well you know how you felt when you got home 
again. I remember getting home once after an 
absence of nearly a year. Everything was dear to 
my heart. Dear is that home to which the soul 
comes and dear that hill which lifts one to the 
storm. Well, such is the joy of a sinner who re- 
turns to God. He is at peace with himself, in fel- 
lowship with the Father, under no condemnation, 
for he is in Christ Jesus, and nothing can ever sepa- 
rate him from the love of God. 

But if words will not describe adequately the joy 
of the son, how shall one describe the joy of the 
father as he realized that this his son who was dead 
is alive again, that he who was lost has been found. 
No matter how joyful you have been and are as 
you are at home with God, the joy of God over the 
returning sinner is far greater. It is so great that 
the angels catch the spirit of rejoicing and there is 
joy in heaven over the sinner that repent eth. You 
are thinking, it may be, of going home. Joyful 
anticipation is yours, but more joyful is the antici- 
pation of father and mother as they watch and wait 
for your return. If you are away from God to- 
night, will you not bring joy to His heart by going 
home? 



XI 



THE HIDDEN BATTLE 

Stand therefore, having your loins girt about with truth, and 
having on the breastplate of righteousness; and your feet 
shod with the preparation of the gospel of peace; above 
all, taking the shield of faith, wherewith ye shall be able 
to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked. And take the 
helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is 
the word of God: praying always with all prayer and 
supplication in the Spirit, and watching ihereunto with 
all perseverance and supplication for all saints. 

— Ephesians 6 : 14-18. 

IT is frequently said by our soldiers that the 
most trying thing in modern warfare is that 
men are fighting a foe that they cannot see; 
they are assailed by an enemy who is concealed. 
Shells coming from points which cannot be deter- 
mined burst about them. Bullets from hidden 
rifles whistle by their ears. Bombs dropped from 
unseen ships of the air scatter death upon them. It 
is this hidden element that makes modern warfare 
hard to endure. It is more difficult to fight a foe 
that one cannot see than it is in open attack, when 
one, seeing the enemy, can prepare himself for the 
onslaught. 

It is this same fact that makes our spiritual con- 
flicts more difficult, for we must wrestle against the 
powers of darkness, against the unseen hosts of 

"3 



114 THE HIDDEN BATTLE 



wickedness, even in heavenly places. Within and 
without we are assailed by enemies that we cannot 
see, nor can we always define them. The powers 
of darkness attack from without, and the imps of 
doubt from within. 

Therefore the writer here urges complete prepa- 
ration, and the climax of this preparation is not 
armour at all but prayer: "with all prayer and 
supplication." It is this fact that needs emphasis 
to-day, namely that the final element of victory in 
this unseen struggle of the heart is prayer. While 
we fight unseen foes, we can always choose the 
field of battle, that is, we can fight within the realm 
of prayer. It is prayer, then, that is the final 
equipment for victory on the battle-field of the 
heart. It will help us to see the truth of this state- 
ment by following the line of thought which Paul 
here sets before us. 

I. The Christian life is a conflict. 

He who would be righteous has a fight on his 
hands. In seeking goodness he meets enemies who 
must be beaten. Enemies assail from without, 
even the powers of darkness. Enemies offer battle 
from within, even the lusts of the flesh. No one 
who is in earnest about goodness ever describes his 
experiences in terms other than those of a fight. 
Paul is a typical example. He writes, " The flesh 
lusteth against the Spirit," and again, " I buffet my 
body." 

Likewise the most eminent Christians always 
describe their experiences in terms of conflict. 



THE HIDDEN BATTLE 115 



Only a little while ago an old friend, whose piety 
has been to me at once a marvel and an inspiration, 
in speaking of his experiences, said, " It has been a 
long, hard fight." There are sincerely pious people 
who say that the Christian life involves no struggle 
at all, that it is only surrender and that God does 
it all ; but still there is a fight to make the surrender. 
In the last analysis it is, of course, the power of 
God's might ; but notwithstanding there is a strug- 
gle which we must make to bring ourselves to the 
point of surrender. Therefore the whole figure 
used to describe the experiences of a Christian in 
efforts after righteousness is a figure drawn from 
warfare. 

II. The Christian life is a hidden conflict. 

No eye sees the decisive part of the engagement. 
The hardest battles of life are the hidden battles of 
the heart. The decisive battles of the world are 
won in private by some general who makes the 
plan, or by some group of men who outline it. It 
is with them that the battle is won before it is 
fought out on the bloody field. 

One of the greatest lawyers of the world said 
that cases are won in chambers and not in court. 
The great physicians tell us that their most signal 
victories are won in secret, not in the presence of 
the patient and his friends. In the privacy of their 
own offices these men of the healing art think and 
study and plan. For a year I lived in the home of 
a great surgeon in South Carolina. I have known 
him to study over a case until far into the night, 



116 THE HIDDEN BATTLE 



and at the breakfast table he would say, " I think 
that I can cure that case now." What I am trying 
to emphasize is that all battles worth winning are 
won in secret. All night Napoleon would ponder 
the situation before he would complete his plans 
and issue his orders. In the winter at Valley Forge 
Washington planned the spring campaign which 
resulted in the surrender of the British at York- 
town. 

So the decisive battles of our lives are hidden, 
and the outward conflicts are but the echo and re- 
verberation of the more real and inward warfare. 
Behind the public ministry of the Master through 
which He moved with such calmness and courage 
lay the battles in the wilderness, where He fought 
out in secret the principles which controlled His 
life. Behind His patience in Pilate's court and His 
faithfulness on Calvary lay the battle of Gethsem- 
ane. There the whole problem was dealt with, the 
whole issue settled in secret fellowship with the 
Father. The calmness and the victorious attitude 
of Paul, as he stood before governors and kings, 
as also in the perils of wreck by sea, can be ac- 
counted for by his secret experiences in the desert 
of Arabia and in nights of prayer to God. 

III. The final and decisive element of victory in 
this conflict is prayer. 

In this program of preparation which Paul sets 
before the Christian it is to be noted that prayer is 
put last, and this not because it is the least impor- 
tant, but because it is the most important. Paul 



THE HIDDEN BATTLE 117 



would have us learn that God will not do for us 
what we can do for ourselves. We are to put on 
first the helmet and the breastplate and to take the 
sword in hand. Our equipment we are to complete 
with prayer and supplication. Here is a great 
truth which some overlook. Some seem to believe 
that no preparation is necessary, that all is trust and 
prayer. It would help us all if we were as sane 
and honest as Paul was. Though his head was in 
the seventh heaven, his feet were on the ground. 
He did not become a fanatic because of his spiritual 
experiences. 

This is the right order of things even in this 
great world war. I believe that the greatest ele- 
ment of victory in the war will be the prayers of 
God's people. But these prayers are not to come 
before but after all possible preparation of men and 
munitions. The final element, therefore, as Paul 
teaches, is the element of prayer. 

Moreover, prayer is the decisive element in every 
struggle. Victory in every conflict, and over every 
manner of foe, lies here. The best evidence of this 
is to be found in the example of the great prayers 
of the world. The great struggle for right desire 
over all has been fought and won by prayer. Let 
a man try as he will to set his heart on righteous- 
ness, he will find that the course of that desire does 
not run smoothly. It is hindered and halted. The 
most serious trouble, the trouble which goes deep- 
est, in our characters and lives, is that which has its 
source in our wayward appetites. 



118 THE HIDDEN BATTLE 



Prayer is the battle-field where war against 
wrong desire is fought out and won. In his auto- 
biography " Chinese " Gordon uses these words, 
" I can say, for my part, that backbiting and envy 
and so on often led me astray, but by dint of per- 
severance and prayer God has given me the mastery 
to a great degree." Even more vivid are other 
words used to describe his victory: " I had a ter- 
rible struggle this morning with Agag, but I finally 
succeeded in hewing him to pieces before the 
Lord." Of course we can understand his words. 
Some evil desire was in him, some selfish ambition. 
These he dragged up before the face of the Lord 
and hewed them to pieces. 

This same truth finds expression in the thirty- 
eighth Psalm: " Lord, all my desire is before thee." 
It is by prayer that men win the victory over the 
effect of evil desires, and by prayer these desires 
themselves are conquered. This ought to be the 
aim of our prayer. The injunction nowhere finds 
better expression than in the words of Coleridge: 

" Whatever is good to wish, ask that of Heaven, 
Though it be what thou canst not hope to see ; 
Pray to be perfect ; though the material leaven, 
Forbid the spirit so on earth to be. 
But if for any wish thou darest not to pray, 
Then pray to God to cast that wish away." 

The struggle between the desire for the praise of 
the world on the one hand and the approval of Goc} 



THE HIDDEN BATTLE 119 



on the other is often fought out in this hidden bat- 
tle of prayer. It is a distinguishing quality of 
great souls that they are able to discount the praise 
of men and to set their hearts singly upon the praise 
of God. It is not an easy thing to say, as Peter 
did when facing persecution and death, " We ought 
to obey God rather than men." It is a great thing to 
be ruled less by the public opinion of the world than 
by the public opinion of the universe, for this latter 
is the will of God. 

Such living as this costs a fight. God is not the 
only one whom we may try to please. Evil assumes 
its most seductive form when it appeals to the 
desire to please men. This conflict between the 
desire to please God and to please the generation 
in the midst of which He lived was the central 
struggle of the Master's life and He fought it out 
in prayer. As we look across the centuries at His 
life we see that the one dominant motive of that 
life was to please the Father; but that was not 
accomplished without a struggle. To please God 
meant to displease His family and the leaders of 
His nation. It meant desertion on the part of 
those who had been His friends and the bitter 
calumny of His enemies. It meant that He would 
be looked upon as a traitor by His country and as 
a heretic by the Church. 

This great battle of the Master was repeatedly 
fought out in prayer. It is the meaning of 
Gethsemane. Prayer is a fight for the power to 
see and the courage to do the will of God. No 



A 



120 THE HIDDEN BATTLE 

man's life is wholly free from this struggle if he 
makes any effort at all toward worthy character 
and life, and the best assurance of success lies in 
daily prayer. There day by day the issue is settled 
that we shall not live as pleasing man, but as pleas- 
ing God who proveth our hearts. 

In prayer the great men of the world have gained 
the victory. By prayer men have regained their 
faith, and, winning back right desires, have gone 
forth to live as pleasing God. Whitefield, the 
great revivalist, used to lie all day prostrate in 
prayer. Luther used to say, " I am so busy now 
that if I do not spend two or three hours a day in 
prayer, I cannot get through the day." Whether 
we pray a long time or a short time depends upon 
temperament. We may pray the most when we 
say the least, and we may pray the least when we 
say the most. The important thing is that the 
supreme struggles of life, those of vital importance, 
are won by prayer. As Fosdick has said in his fine 
little work on prayer, " Some feel about prayer as 
men feel who, not understanding what astronomy 
has done for life, go into an observatory and see 
the astronomer studying the stars." To the man 
of every-day affairs this work of the star-gazer 
seems a foolish waste ; but the fact is that the star- 
gazer sets the clock by which we do our tasks. 
He makes the almanac by which we measure our 
day. He frames the calendar by which we count 
our year. We never caught a train, nor figured 
time, nor set ourselves to any common duty that 



THE HIDDEN BATTLE 121 



we did not put ourselves under obligation to him 
who studies the stars. 

So prayer is an observatory. It is there we get 
our reckoning for life. The old Greeks before go- 
ing into battle consulted the oracle. Prayer is our 
oracle. It is, to renew the figure of a moment ago, 
our observatory from which we get a right view of 
God and right view too of life. And when we 
have these we have power for the overthrow of 
every enemy that may assail. If we take the 
armament described in these words of Paul, not 
forgetting the greatest of them all, prayer to God, 
we shall be able to quench all the fiery darts of the 
evil one and march through life triumphantly to 
receive at last the victor's crown. 



XII 



THE INCREASING CHRIST 

He m ust increase, but I must decrease. — John 3 : 30. 

THERE is no finer instance of magnanimity 
than that recorded here. John the Bap- 
tist saw the crowds which had followed 
him dwindling and in great numbers going to Jesus. 
When his waning popularity was spoken of, he 
answered in these words of our text, " He must in- 
crease, but I must decrease." It is never an easy 
thing to give way to another, to see one's popu- 
larity pass and another take the place in which one 
was formerly useful and happy. But this the Bap- 
tist not only accepted cheerfully ; he was even able 
to rejoice in the increasing popularity of Jesus and 
was content to be only " the voice of one crying in 
the wilderness " that he might make ready a people 
prepared for the Lord. 

As there has been no finer display of mag- 
nanimity than that made by John, so also there has 
never been a finer tribute than that paid by Jesus: 
"Among them that are born of women there hath 
not risen a greater than John the Baptist." This 
tribute takes on a new value when we remember 
that it came from the lips of our Lord. 

122 



THE INCREASING CHRIST 123 



But we are not so much concerned in our study 
to-day with the great-heartedness of John as we are 
with the fact of the increasing Christ. Of this 
there is, of course, an application to the mission 
and the ministry of Christ in the world. He has 
been and is and will continue through all time to 
be an increasing Christ. We can rejoice in our 
faith that even in these awful days of war His 
power is on the increase. Only a few days ago I 
was reading the testimony given by a number of 
British soldiers, who, though differing greatly as 
to denominations, agreed absolutely that never in 
their lives was there a time when Christianity 
meant so much to them as it means in these days. 
It is a singular thing that, with criticism so ram- 
pant, in a time when men are finding fault with the 
Church and questioning the creeds of the Church, 
some even saying that the influence of the Church 
is rapidly waning, there is no voice lifted against 
Christ Himself. The British chaplain, Dr. Tip- 
lady, the author of that splendid little book, " The 
Cross at the Front," speaks most vividly of the 
increasing power and influence of Christ and His 
cross in the lives of the soldiers, and freely pre- 
dicts that there will be a great revival of religion 
at the close of the war and possibly before. There 
need be no fear in our hearts as to the future of 
the religion of Christ. " He shall not fail nor be 
discouraged, till he have set judgment in the earth: 
and the isles shall wait for his law " — words of an 
ancient prophet finding their fulfillment in our own 



124 THE INCREASING CHRIST 



day. " Of the increase of his government and 
peace there shall be no end." " He shall have 
dominion also from sea to sea, and from the river 
unto the ends of the earth." 

But we must concern ourselves with still a differ- 
ent application of the statement of our text, and 
that is a personal one. It is an increasing Christ 
in our own hearts that we are to think of. When 
one becomes a Christian the old nature still remains 
in part. There is, however, the new nature re- 
sulting from Christ in us, the Christ who is the 
hope of glory. The man who is not a Christian 
is only carnal, fleshly. The two natures in the 
Christian exist side by side, and it is the work of 
the Christian to see that the carnal grows less and 
less and the spiritual more and more. In the king- 
dom of Israel there existed two royal families, the 
house of David and the house of Saul. The house 
of David grew stronger and stronger until it was 
absolute. The house of Saul became weaker and 
weaker until at length it passed away. The life of 
the Christian may be likened unto that of the early 
Christian Church. Within the early Church there 
existed side by side many things of the old dis- 
pensation and the spirit of grace and freedom in 
Christ of the new dispensation. The old things 
after a little passed altogether out of sight and the 
new things of the religion of Christ took their 
place. To this there is a resemblance in the his- 
tory of every Christian life. The old life must de- 
crease while the life in Christ must increase. "If 



THE INCREASING CHRIST 125 



any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old 
things are passed away; behold, all things are be- 
come new." In making this personal application 
we are, therefore, to think of these two things: 

1. The decreasing self. It has just been said 
that it is the business of the Christian to see to it 
that the old nature which is carnal decreases until 
it is no longer dominant in our lives, until sin has 
little or no power over us, until sin ceases to reign 
in our mortal bodies, until Christ is all and in all, 
until the life which we live in the flesh we live by 
the faith of the Son of God who loved us and gave 
Himself for us. 

The task, then, for the Christian is that of striv- 
ing for the decrease of self, and both the biblical 
and scientific method for the elimination of self is 
to ignore it until it is atrophied. Paul's words are, 
" Reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto 
sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our 
Lord," and again, " Be not overcome of evil, but 
overcome evil with good." The principle is that 
long ago expressed by Horace Bushnell, " the 
capacity for religion is extirpated by disuse." The 
rule works as to other things. What we do not 
use we lose. The fish in Mammoth Cave once had 
eyes like other fish, but dwelling in darkness, their 
eyes never used, they lost the power of sight. The 
appendix is thought once to have had a definite 
function, but in some way not known it has lost 
its use and is now only a menace to health and life. 
About the only use that it seems to have now is to 



126 THE INCREASING CHRIST 



furnish a living to surgeons and to create in 
America a class of aristocrats, the appendixless 
class. 

By means of a very simple experiment you may 
see the working of this principle. Bind up your 
arm and for a month carry it in a sling. At the 
end of the month attempt to use your arm, and you 
will find that it has lost much of its power. There 
is a parallel in the spiritual life. If we refuse to 
be governed by self and sin, if through faith in 
God we reckon ourselves dead unto sin, sin actually 
tends to die. Therefore the Bible writer was 
speaking with scientific accuracy when he said, 
" Put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make not 
provision for the flesh, to fulfill the lusts thereof." 

I recall that, when living in another city, I was 
greatly disturbed by the frequent ringing of the 
bells of a Catholic church which stood almost di- 
rectly across the street from my home. As it did 
not suit me to move and as the church would not 
move I resolved that I would not hear the ringing 
of those disturbing bells. Soon the time came 
when, however loud was their ringing, I did not 
hear them. In fact, when one day my thought was 
directed to the matter, I could not recall when I 
had last heard the bells. Some time ago a friend 
told me that when he first came to the city to live, 
he was constantly being attracted to auction sales, 
and that invariably he came away with a gold brick. 
He saw the folly of what he was doing and soon 
was able to overcome it. These are but homely 



THE INCEEABING CHEIST 127 



illustrations of a great truth. The habitual deny- 
ing of the self-life, the habit of turning a deaf ear 
to the appeals of sin, lessens wonderfully the 
strength of such appeals. Let me say this to those 
who are young, especially to those who are young 
in Christian experience: there is such a thing as a 
good habit as well as a bad habit. To ignore the 
appeal of evil, to close the ears to its siren voice 
to-day, will make it easier to-morrow. The voice 
of the old nature is not gone. You will hear it call 
you away from the church to " eat, drink, and be 
merry but, by God's grace, cultivate the habit of 
resisting it and the enticing voice will grow faint 
and still more faint. 

This is one of the hopeful features of our re- 
ligion. Every temptation resisted makes one 
stronger to resist the next. We do indeed, as the 
poet sings, rise upon " the stepping stones of our 
dead selves to higher things." No matter how 
bitter the fight to-day, to-morrow's sun will find 
you farther up the hill. You may never be able 
entirely to subdue the old life, though some seem 
to have achieved even this. Generally, however, 
it is true that a remnant of the old evil remains to 
be as a thorn in our flesh that we may be humble. 
But it is possible to approach unto that place where 
self has so decreased that the normal experience is 
that of victory, and even if there should be occa- 
sional defeat, we may thank God that the experi- 
ence of defeat is exceptional. Therefore the pro- 
gram of the Christian life, on its negative side, is 



128 THE INCREASING CHRIST 



the decreasing of self until we can say with the 
poet, " None of self and all of thee.'* 

2. The increasing Christ. If we are to live 
the Christian life in any worthy way, we must give 
attention to the positive aspect of it. Christ must 
increase in our lives. Religion is Christ in us, and 
real religion means the increasing Christ. It is 
worth the preacher's while to plead for this. 
It is worth while for every one to think of 
the ways in which the Christ should increase in 
our lives. 

(a) He should have an increasing place in our 
thoughts. Our thoughts are the source of our life. 
"As a man thinketh in his heart, so is he." If we 
will allow the Christ to increase in our thoughts, 
we shall find Him increasing in all other things of 
life. Let us begin each day with a definite thought 
as to the will of Christ for us that day. And in 
all matters where we are compelled to choose, let 
us think what choice Christ would have us make. 
Anything that will help us to give Christ an in- 
creasing place in our thoughts we should cultivate. 
This it is that gives value to attendance upon the 
services of the church, not the morning service only 
but all its services. By the law of association the 
very entering into the church brings Christ to mind. 
Even a better thing than going to church is com- 
muning with Christ in prayer. Let the beginning 
of each new day and its close find us upon our 
knees in prayer and meditation. The same law 
operates here as operates elsewhere : " We all, with 



THE INCEEASING CHEIST 129 



unveiled face beholding as in a mirror the glory of 
the Lord, are transformed into the same image 
from glory to glory, even as from the Lord the 
Spirit " (2 Cor. 3: 18, R. V.). A letter from an 
absent loved one brings that loved one more vividly 
before us. Even the likeness of a loved one car- 
ried about with us serves to make that dear one 
more real. So everything that brings Christ more 
closely to us and tends to give Him an increasing 
place in our lives should be cultivated. 

(b) Christ should have an increasing place in 
our hearts. I am using the word " heart " in the 
Bible sense, as indicating the very center of life, 
the affection, reason, and will. To have Him in- 
crease there means an increasing place in our affec- 
tions. It is what Jesus had in mind when He said 
to Peter, " Lovest thou me?" It is what John, 
too, had in mind when he wrote, " We love him be- 
cause he first loved us." The constant and intelli- 
gent effort to appreciate Christ's love for us com- 
pels us to give Him a larger place in our hearts. 
It seems to me that this is one of the elements of 
value in the sacrament of the Lord's Supper. It 
unveils before us the wondrous devotion and sacri- 
fice of Jesus and gives Him an increasing place in 
our affections. 

But by " heart " we are to understand also the 
will. When the Bible says, " Son, give me thine 
heart," it means " Give me thy will." In the Chris- 
tian life there is an increasing yielding of the will 
to Christ. This matter of yielding to Christ never 



130 THE INCREASING CHRIST 



stops. Each new day brings some new circum- 
stance in which it becomes necessary for us to yield 
the will to Christ. Henry Drummond is the author 
of a little study which he entitles, " The Meaning 
of Life." His teaching is that the supreme end of 
life is not to do good or to be good, not even to 
win souls to Christ, but that we do the will of 
Christ in all things, and by illustration goes on to 
show that the life which is being constantly yielded 
to Christ is the only ideal life. That sort of life 
has its high example in Him of whom it is written, 
" I come to do thy will." It furnishes high com- 
panionship : " Whosoever shall do the will of my 
Father who is in heaven, the same is my brother, 
and sister, and mother/' It has a perfect program 
of education: " Teach me to do thy will." It is 
a life of the finest pleasure, the truest joy: "I de- 
light to do thy will, O Lord." The essential 
thing, then, in the successful Christian life is to 
give Christ an increasing place in our hearts, to be 
willing in all things to do His will. This complete 
yielding of the life to Christ finds expression in 
one of the familiar hymns: 

" It may not be on the mountain's height, 
Or over the stormy sea; 
It may not be at the battle's front 
My Lord will have need of me: 
But if by a still, small voice He calls 
To paths that I do not know, 
I'll answer, ' Dear Lord, with my hand in Thine 
I'll go where you want me to go.' " 



THE INCEEASING CHEIST 131 



(c) Christ must increase in our service. This 
is the final appeal I would make to-day. We have 
been content to give Christ all too little of our time 
and our means. We have too often been playing 
at Christian service. There never was a time in 
which there is a more urgent call to Christian 
service. It is not Christianity that is on trial so 
much as it is we ourselves. The task that Christi- 
anity has to perform is by far the hardest task 
since Christ came. Not only do we have a pagan 
and heathen world to reclaim, but we have some- 
how to counteract the demoralizing influence of the 
war by an aggressive Christianity. Moreover, we 
have as ours the task of giving Christ to the mil- 
lions of young men now on the fields of battle 
before they become the victims of the Moloch of 
war. The only answer, not only to the criticism 
of the religion of Christ, but as well to the in- 
creasing need of the world, is the giving of our- 
selves in larger measure to the service of Christ. 
In a recent address, President Wilson urged that 
the Church be kept at concert pitch, and there be no 
letting down or falling back. The best defense of 
Christianity is an aggressive program. Last 
autumn Coach Warner, of the University of Pitts- 
burgh, said, in reply to criticism of his tactics, that 
the best defense for a football team is a strong 
offense. The same is true as to Christianity and 
its work in the world. By displaying the increas- 
ing power of Christ in our lives and in the lives of 
others we change the question mark which some 



132 THE INCREASING CHRIST 



men are putting after the Church into an exclama- 
tion point, " Behold what hath God wrought ! " 

There never was a time, may I say in closing, 
when there was so great a need for an increasing 
service in the cause of Christ, and this in our own 
community and even in our own church. The 
rapid growth of this part of our city, the fact that 
so many of our young men have been called to the 
colours, the increasing need of strength and com- 
fort and optimism which only Christianity can fur- 
nish, make it imperative that we give to Christ this 
year the largest possible service. 

I am pleading, therefore, to-day for an increas- 
ing Christ. Let self decrease to the vanishing 
point. The man or woman trying to live for self 
in these great days is like one born out of due time. 
We must simply forget self, not only in the in- 
terests of the republic, but in the interests of the 
Christ. Let Christ increase in our lives to the point 
of complete dominance and let us keep on praying 
and trusting and yielding until there shall be none 
of self but all of Him. 



XIII 

GOD AND THE INDIVIDUAL 

Thou art the man. — 2 Samufx 12 : 7. 

THE story of David's great sin is so 
familiar that it does not need recounting. 
There are, however, two or three lessons 
to be learned from it, and these I would mention. 
David was at home living in luxury when he ought 
to have been on the field of battle. Large success 
and great wealth had taken the manly spirit out of 
him and he had become too much the mere seeker 
after pleasure. The consequences show us how 
our pleasant vices make whips to scourge us. We 
find in it, too, an illustration of the commonplace 
yet vital truth, that one sin leads to another. 
David committed murder in the vain hope of con- 
cealing his sin of adultery. 

But this royal sinner did not go long unrebuked. 
God sent the prophet Nathan to tell David of his 
sin. It was no easy task for Nathan. He and 
David were very close friends. The prophet had 
received much help at the hands of the king. Da- 
vid's position as king made the task of Nathan the 
more difficult, but the prophet goes courageously 
to his duty. After the oriental fashion, he puts 

i33 



134 GOD AND THE INDIVIDUAL 



his rebuke in the form of a parable. The parable 
takes the king on the most susceptible side of his 
nature. David was a man of kind and generous 
impulses, and the story was such as to stir these in 
him: A friend comes to visit a man of wealth 
and the latter for the entertainment of his guest 
decides to kill a lamb ; but he refuses to take from 
his own flocks and takes from a poor neighbour the 
" one little ewe lamb, which he had bought and 
nourished up: and it grew up together with him, 
and with his children ; it did eat of his own meat, 
and drank of his own cup, and lay in his bosom, 
and was unto him as a daughter." At the recital 
of such cruelty David's soul flames and he cries out 
in his wrath, "As the Lord liveth, the man that 
hath done this thing shall surely die: and he shall 
restore the lamb fourfold, because he did this thing, 
and because he had no pity." Then Nathan makes 
the application, bringing the truth home to David's 
conscience. His accusing words are those of our 
text, " Thou art the man." Then David realized 
it all. He sees his sin as he had not seen it before. 
The great man bows in sorrow for his sin and in 
real agony of soul cries out, " I have sinned against 
the Lord." 

The story serves to illustrate certain important 
truths. 

I. How strangely blind we are to our own 
faults. -* 

A man's sins are seldom seen in their true char- 
acter. When the sin is apart from himself it is 



GOD AND THE INDIVIDUAL 



135 



seen in its true colours, but when the sin is his own 
his eyes are blind to its real nature. We have two 
sets of names for vices. One set rather excuses 
them. Another set puts them in their real ugliness. 
The former we use in speaking of our own sins. 
We call these weaknesses and follies. But when 
we speak of the sins of others, we are very free 
in painting them in all their horrid colours. So 
the fact is that we condemn our own vices when we 
see them in others, but we do not see them as vices 
in ourselves. David did not for a moment suspect 
that when he was condemning the imaginary man 
for his cruelty, he was condemning himself. The 
man of the parable had stolen and killed the one 
ewe lamb of his poor neighbour. David had 
robbed a wife of her virtue and had sent a gallant 
soldier to his death. In condemning the lesser sin 
of another he spoke the severer condemnation of 
himself. We still need to make the prayer of 
Robert Burns: 

" Oh, wad some power the giftie gie us 
To see oursel's as others see us ! 
It wad f rae monie a blunder free us 

And foolish notion." 

And there is even a better prayer than this. It is 
that we may see ourselves, not as others see us, but 
as God sees us. And to see ourselves as God sees 
us is to see ourselves as we are. But how hard that 
is. To our faults we seem to be as strangely blind 
as David was to his. 



136 GOD AND THE INDIVIDUAL 



Just why this is so it would be hard to say. 
Two or three reasons may be given in explanation. 

For one thing, a strong desire for anything on 
which we have set our hearts always tends to con- 
fuse the distinctions which ought to be made be- 
tween right and wrong. Our desires once excited, 
we go straight toward their object and scarcely stop 
to consider whether our actions be right or wrong. 

Then, too, when habit has once made us familiar 
with evil our sense of it as evil is diminished. At 
first, doubtless, David realized his sin, but shortly 
after he was called away to the field of battle, and 
for a year his mind was occupied with the bitter 
struggle against the children of Ammon. Through 
this whole year he was living in sin, but the first 
clear conviction of it had lessened and the very 
habit had diminished the sense of evil. It might 
be illustrated in this way : A man that is living in a 
poorly ventilated room does not notice the poisoned 
atmosphere. If you go into it from the outside 
air, at first you are almost stifled, but breathe easier 
as you become accustomed to it. So men live in 
evil and become blind to the evil of their lives. 
Dr. Watkinson has a great sermon which he en- 
titles, "The Blind Spot." In it he shows that 
nearly every one of us has some defect, in other 
words a blind spot. Living in sin, one becomes 
blind to the hideousness of that particular sin. 

Then it is also true that many purposely and 
continually avoid all questions as to the moral char- 
acter of their conduct. We seldom sit down to 



GOD AND THE INDIVIDUAL 137 



reason whether what we have been doing is right 
or wrong, and the reason is that deep down in our 
natures we know what the answer would be. 
David does not seem to have allowed himself to 
give much thought to what he had done. In fact 
he seems purposely to have occupied himself with 
the affairs of his army so as not to have time for 
thought concerning his sin, and it would appear 
that in some measure he succeeded. 

Then, again, we are blind to our own faults be- 
cause we refuse to individualize them. In a gen- 
eral sort of a way we are all ready to say that we 
have sinned. We lose ourselves in the crowd, join 
in the one acknowledgment, and confess that all 
have sinned. But for the words " we " and " all " 
we need to substitute the personal pronoun " I," 
and say, each of us, " I have sinned against the 
Lord," as David did. For every one of us must 
give an account of himself to God. The truth calls, 
therefore, for self-examination. It means that we 
are to look deep into our own hearts, assured that 
if we do, we will hear the voice of conscience 
speaking in the words of the prophet, " Thou art 
the man." 

II. The words of our text set before us the real 
purpose of God's methods. 

It required a message and a messenger from God 
to break through David's heart and to thrust the 
cold steel into his soul. " The word of God is 
quick and powerful, and sharper than any two- 
edged sword." David did not come to a convic- 



138 GOD AND THE INDIVIDUAL 



tion of sin until he heard God's message from one 
of God's own messengers. 

This very fact that we are so strangely blind to 
our own sins argues two things. 

It is, for one thing, an argument showing the 
necessity for a divine revelation. We need another 
than self to lay down the law of conduct. Con- 
science is far from being a wholly reliable guide. 
Conscience is neither an impartial nor an all-know- 
ing judge. The fact that one is not conscious of 
evil is not by any means proof positive of inno- 
cence. My conscience tells me that I must not do 
wrong, that I must do right, but when I ask as to 
what is right or wrong I get no answer from con- 
science. A man may bribe his conscience, he may 
throttle it, he may even sneer at it. So the worst 
men, the men who ought to suffer most from the 
torturings of conscience, are often freest from 
these. Therefore it is plain that we cannot rely 
upon the judgment of conscience. Paul thought, 
when he persecuted the Church, that he was doing 
God service. Your conscience and another man's, 
though they may agree in the main, are not the 
same. Conscience is like our weights and meas- 
ures. We need occasionally to take these to a per- 
fect standard that they may be corrected and certi- 
fied. We need, therefore, a perfect standard of 
revelation. Our need of such a standard is in 
itself an argument that a loving God will give us 
what we need, and that is what He has done. In 
His book and in the life and character of Jesus 



GOD AND THE INDIVIDUAL 139 



Christ He has given a revelation of Himself, and by 
that revelation one may set his conscience even as 
by a perfect chronometer one sets his watch. 

Having thus before us the revelation which God 
has given, we see what its purpose is. It is to 
touch the conscience and to enlighten it, and at the 
same time to kindle a sense of sin. And this like- 
wise is the great program of God's messengers. 
The only true sermon is one which makes appeal 
to conscience, and the very message which is most 
unpleasant may be in the most real sense a mes- 
sage from God. A sermon which pleases the in- 
tellect and soothes the conscience may be popular, 
but it will probably accomplish little in the lives of 
men. On the contrary, a sermon which arouses 
opposition, because it has pierced the conscience, 
may be doing the greatest amount of good. The 
Church and the Christian people and the preachers 
who go along doing their work and offering a testi- 
mony without interfering with the evils of the 
world, may be very much liked by the world. 
When, on the contrary, they are opposing the world 
and exposing the sin of the world and its institu- 
tions, they may be hated, but they are showing 
themselves to be true prophets of God. In reality 
the message which rebukes sin is the truest kind- 
ness. When Nathan stood before the king that 
day and spoke the words that pierced and burned, 
he was doing a truer and a nobler thing, a thing 
more worthy of his God and his prophetic office, 
than if he had attempted to ease David and with 



140 



GOD AND THE INDIVIDUAL 



soft words relieve his conscience. The surgeon 
may be doing a more kindly thing than the homeo- 
path. His gleaming instruments may be a kinder, 
because surer, remedy than a bromide. It is plain 
from every consideration that the one great loving 
purpose of divine revelation is to kindle a sense of 
sin. That is why Nathan came to David. He 
told him of his sin that he might escape its penalty, 
be delivered from its power, and be made clean of 
its pollution. 

III. God condemns us individually that He 
may save us individually. 

The prophet's message accomplished the prophet's 
purpose. David was convicted of sin and, in his 
agony of soul, cried out, " I have sinned against 
the Lord." The prophet speaks tender and healing 
words: " The Lord also hath put away thy sin; 
thou shalt not die." 

What we need to learn from the story is that 
this same individualizing ajid isolating process is 
needed still. God desires to save the world, but 
He can save the world only as He saves men one by 
one. There is no wholesale entering into the King- 
dom of God. There must be personal faith. 
There must be personal repentance and personal 
acceptance. Salvation is the meeting of the lonely 
soul with God alone. God had to deal with David 
as an individual. He had to forgive him as an 
individual. It is not enough for us to say, " We 
have sinned." It is not enough that we cry, 
" Lord, have mercv unon us." We must come to 



GOD AND THE INDIVIDUAL 141 



closer grips with God, even as did Jacob that night 
when he wrestled and cried out, " I will not let 
thee go except thou bless me." We need to cry, 
" O Lord, thou who didst love me and give thyself 
for me, have mercy upon me" The difference be- 
tween really possessing forgiveness and not pos- 
sessing it is in the difference between saying " us " 
and saying " me." The accusation is still that of 
this old prophet, — " Thou art the man," and peni- 
tence must be just as personal with us as it was 
with David, for salvation is personal now as it was 
then. Christ gives us the blank check in His word, 
" Whosoever believeth on him shall not perish." 
Each must write his or her own name into it. 

In all this concerning the individual I am not 
losing sight of the social ministry of the Church. 
I believe that the Church can bring help to men in 
crowds, that religion can better the outer condi- 
tion of the world by states and nations, and that 
this it ought by all means to do; but the Church 
cannot save men by crowds. We can be saved 
only as individuals. Hence the value of this old 
story, for here the process is made plain. We are 
strangely blind to our own sins until they are 
shown to us by God's message and through His 
messenger. By the law is the knowledge of sin. 
Moreover, this is the supreme purpose of God's 
message. It is to enlighten conscience and to re- 
veal sin, and this it must do for each of us if it is 
to do its perfect work. The preacher may speak 
to crowds, but God's Spirit must take the word to 



142 GOD AND THE INDIVIDUAL 



each individual and bring it to conscience and heart 
in these words of our text, " Thou art the man." 
The very message that shows us the way to faith, 
the knife that opens up the wound to save the 
patient, brings life to the soul in sin. Nathan went 
to David to condemn him, and this he did in love 
that he might save him. God sent His prophet to 
accuse the king that He might forgive him, and, 
when David made confession, his forgiveness was 
immediate, free, and full. The same God who 
said, " Thou art the man," said also, " I have put 
away the iniquity of thy sin." This is the course 
each of us must follow if we would find cleansing 
and peace and life. 



XIV 

THE UNKNOWN FUTURE 

It is not for you to know the times or the seasons, which the 
Father hath put in his own power. — Acts i : 7. 

THE conversations of our Lord with His 
disciples during the forty days interven- 
ing between His resurrection and ascen- 
sion furnish an attractive field for the play of the 
imagination. We have recorded only a few of 
these, and the probabilities are that He had many 
conversations with His disciples of which we are 
told nothing. We are, however, given here and 
there an example of the theme of these conversa- 
tions. It is said that He taught and reasoned with 
them concerning the Kingdom of God, and the sure 
and certain way in which they went forward in the 
work of spreading the Gospel under the direction 
of the Holy Spirit is an indication that they had 
received careful directions as to the progress of 
the kingdom. 

One of these conversations is recorded here in 
the first few verses of the opening chapter of the 
Acts of the Apostles. It has to do especially with 
His second advent, for the disciples still had mis- 
taken notions as to the advent and the nature of 

*43 



144 THE UNKNOWN FUTUEE 

the kingdom which Christ would establish. The 
question which they asked, " Lord, wilt thou at 
this time restore again the kingdom to Israel ? " 
was a perfectly natural one, for they were slow to 
relinquish the idea that His kingdom would be a 
sort of pan-Israelitish kingdom somewhat similar 
to the pan-Germanic kingdom of which we are 
hearing so much just now. 

Our Lord's answer to that question is a, very 
practical one. He admonishes them that they are 
not to lament the past or dream of the future. 
That future is in the power of God. The time of 
Christ's return and the final establishment of His 
kingdom are known only to God. The thing for 
them to do is to get to work and witness for Him 
even to the ends of the earth. 

The immediate application, then, is to their 
ignorance as to the time of Christ's return. It ad- 
mits, however, of a very much wider application, 
and it seems to me a very appropriate subject for 
our thought as we stand upon the threshold of a 
new year. Especially is it appropriate when we 
think of the uncertainty of the times, and the feel- 
ing that all these wars and rumours of wars are the 
prelude to what is in reality the end of the age, 
indicating the early return of Christ to the world 
that He may establish forever His perfect king- 
dom. 

Along these lines I ask you to think with me 
this morning, — the wisdom which keeps us igno- 
rant of the future, the safe hands which hold that 



THE UNKNOWN FUTUEE 145 



future, and the all-sufficient power for the present 
and the future. 

I. The wisdom of keeping us ignorant of the 
future. 

" It is not for you to know the times or the 
seasons, which the Father hath put in his own 
power." How little we know of the future and 
how well it is that we know so little. 

We are quite sure that we shall all pass away. 
We are sure that a mingled web of joy and sorrow, 
light shot through with dark, will be unrolled before 
us, but as to anything beyond that we know noth- 
ing. We feel certain that a great majority of us 
will be living at the end of this year, but who will 
not be among the living we cannot know. A great 
many of us, especially those in the monotonous 
stretch of middle life, will go on much as we have 
been going on through the recent years, with our 
ordinary duties and joys and sorrows ; but to some 
of us in all probability this year will bring some 
great change, which may brighten or darken all our 
remaining days. The future fronts us like some 
great statue hidden in mist and shadows. 

But that of which I would remind you is this, 
how merciful and wise that this is so. How merci- 
ful, for example, that we do not know when the 
Christ will come. That is what these men of the 
early day wished to know. How wise to keep it 
from them. But look at it in another way. Sup- 
pose that Christ had fixed a date for His return. It 
must have been near or far off. In either case He 



146 THE UNKNOWN FUTUBE 



would have defeated the very purpose of the king- 
dom of heaven on earth, the object of that kingdom 
being to teach men how to live the life of God in 
this present world. Uncertainty as to the end is 
the healthiest state of mind in which the followers 
of Christ can be. Christ holds out the prospect of 
His return for a twofold purpose. It is, for one 
thing, that He may comfort His people under the 
daily troubles of life. " If we believe that Jesus 
died and rose again, even so them also that sleep 
in Jesus will God bring with him." But there 
was another and equally important thing to be 
accomplished by this uncertainty. It stirred men 
to a perpetual watchfulness and to right and 
faithful care and devotion lest when their Lord 
came He find them sleeping. We are all aware 
that, taking the New Testament as a whole, 
there are two contrasted lines of prophecy as to 
Christ's second coming. One seems to indicate its 
nearness, the other that it is far off. Both create 
an uncertainty that produces a combination of com- 
fort and an incentive to faithfulness and devotion 
to the end. Suppose that He had responded to the 
query and set the date of His coming at a thousand 
years from that time. It would have robbed it of 
all its practical power over men because of its re- 
moteness. Suppose that He had fixed it for the 
end of that century. It would have paralyzed all 
effort, religious, commercial, and other. All 
work would have been looked upon as an imperti- 
nence. This was its effect upon the Thessalonians. 



THE UNKNOWN FUTURE 147 



They misapprehended Paul's words and believed 
that the coming of Christ was imminent. In con- 
sequence they ceased work and became busybodies. 
The experience there among the Thessalonians has 
often been repeated through the centuries. The 
year 1000 a. d. was supposed to mark the end of 
the age. Men abandoned their work and left their 
families to starve. The result was widespread 
misery, famine and disease. Again in 1830 we 
find a repetition of this experience in England. 
Experience teaches us that no men have been more 
unpractical and profitless Christians than those who 
attempt to figure out the exact date as to the reap- 
pearance of the Son of Man. 

Now the same evil effect that would have re- 
sulted had our Lord fixed the exact date of His re- 
turn would follow in individual lives if we knew 
just when we should be called before God to give 
an account of the deeds done in the body. If a 
man knew that he had fifty years to live, the tend- 
ency would be to carelessness, to say as did the 
man in the parable, " My Lord delayeth his com- 
ing." He would feel that he had plenty of time 
to prepare for the end of life and the judgment. 
In case the life was full of trouble, and the bur- 
dened one felt that he must wait fifty years for 
deliverance, he would be borne down with discour- 
agement. If we knew the future, as the date drew 
near, we would feel that effort was not worth 
while. But since, in the loving wisdom of God we 
do not know, we can go about our work in life with 



148 THE UNKNOWN FUTUKE 



at least a hope of opportunity and a belief that we 
shall not be called away till our work is done, and 
at the same time inspired with faithfulness by the 
very fact that we know not when the Son of Man 
cometh. 

The wise course of conduct, then, is this: not a 
confident reckoning on to-morrow, nor that self- 
confidence that takes it for granted that to-morrow 
shall be as this day. The conceit that things are to 
go on as they have been indefinitely fools men into 
a dream of permanence that has no basis in fact. 
And the fearful apprehension of evil is not any 
better. How many people spoil the present joy 
with the skeleton of to-morrow's sorrow. Like 
they are to the little girl who spoiled all her visit 
with the thought of having to separate the next 
day. There are certain wise precautions which we 
must take, of which I shall speak presently in an- 
other connection. 

II. The safe hands which hold the future. 
" Which the Father hath put in his own power." 

The future is not guided by an impersonal fate. 
It is not a wild whirlwind of chance. It is not 
guided even by a theistic providence. It is not to 
be reckoned by the laws of averages, as the in- 
surance companies reckon the future. It is in the 
hands of a Father, and that makes us feel pretty 
safe in regard to the future, provided, of course, 
that we are in right relations with the Father and 
trust Him and accept His love in Christ. One has 
not much to fear. The child faces the future with- 



THE UNKNOWN FUTURE 149 



out anxiety, because if he does not know, the father 
knows and the father will guide and protect him. 
It is so with us if we are the sons of God, and are 
trustful of Him as a Father. Then there are two 
things at least of which we may be sure: 

1. That whatever comes it will be the loving 
discipline of a Father, who shapes it all and keeps 
it in His own hands. As Browning puts it, " He 
guides me and the bird/' That very name of 
Father pledges him to a wide and loving and 
disciplinary dealing, and should move us to a 
happy trust. It is a bit hard to believe this to-day 
when we think of the misery that is in the world. 
It seems as though the world were left to blind 
chance. It is hard to reconcile the fact of the 
future being in the hands of the Father with the 
cruel things which are happening in the world. 
But there is this to be said, that God sustains other 
relations to the world in general. He is the moral 
governor of the universe, and in so far as this 
moral government affects His children we may be 
sure that it will be ordered in loving discipline for 
their good. 

2. Since God is our Father and we are His sons 
we are assured that we shall grow more and more 
into His likeness. " Now are we the sons of God, 
and it doth not yet appear what we shall be : but we 
know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like 
him ; for we shall see him as he is." 

III. Sufficient strength and patience for the 
unknown to-morrow. 



150 THE UNKNOWN FUTUEE 



" Ye shall receive power, when the Holy Spirit 
is come upon you: and ye shall be my witnesses 
both in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, 
and unto the uttermost part of the earth." The 
two things about the future which Jesus told His 
disciples should concern them were strength and 
sendee. 

1. God will take care 01 the strength. " The 
Holy Spirit shall come upon you." This same 
power is promised to us all through the grace of 
Christ. All that there is for us to do is to accept 
it. The Holy Spirit is the true interpreter of 
providence. He calms our nature and gives us in- 
ward peace and enlightens our understanding that 
we may grasp the meaning of all our experiences. 
He is the great comforter and power for His peo- 
ple and through Him the grace of God will be made 
sufficient. Hence if we are His, we may be quite 
sure that nothing will come to us in our earthly 
future which He Himself will not accompany to 
interpret it to us in some measure and make it a 
blessing. 

2. The great thing we should look to in the 
future is our work. The great remedy for a mor- 
bid anticipation of the future lies in regarding life 
as an opportunity for sendee. But attend to your 
work and be faithful to your duty. That clears 
away cobwebs from the brain, as when, in the 
country, one wakes from troubled dreams to hear 
the sweep of the scythe in the field of grain, the 
songs of the labourers as they go to their work, 



THE UNKNOWN FUTURE 151 



the lowing of the cattle, the sound of the hammer 
and the creaking of the blacksmith's bellows, or, 
if in the city, the whistle of the engine and the voice 
of the street car and the clatter of the hoofs of the 
horses upon the asphalt. So work will waken us 
from the troubled dreams and keep us busy and 
free from vain speculations. 

Then the great work we have to do in the future 
is to be witnesses for Christ. This is the meaning 
of all life, in both joy and sorrow. For the an- 
cient challenge, " Come and see how a Christian 
can suffer," has lost none of its power. The quiet 
and submissive way in which a Christian bears suf- 
fering is one of the strongest proofs of the reality 
of Christianity in his life. And in this work of 
witnessing for Christ we are immortal till our work 
is done. Jesus said to His disciples that He would 
not return until the Gospel had been preached to 
the uttermost parts of the earth. So He will not 
call you away until you have fulfilled your mission 
of witnessing for Him. And we may look upon 
these words of our text as a promise of preserva- 
tion till our work is done. 

Then, my friend, how do you stand with God, 
facing as you do that unknown to-morrow ? How 
can you face it without going mad unless you know 
God and trust Him through Christ as your Father ? 
If you do so trust Him, you need have no fear. 
To-morrow lies all dim and strange before you, but 
His gentle hand is working in the darkness and He 
will shape all things right. He will fit you to bear 



152 THE UNKNOWN FUTURE 



whatever comes and make all things work together 
for good. He will not let you fall. 

If God is not your Father through Christ, how 
dreary is the future which you face. It is like 
putting out upon a stormy sea from which wild 
shapes may come up and devour you and upon 
which you are sailing without chart or compass or 
pilot. Love and friendship will pass, strength will 
fail, as will also honour. Life will ebb away and 
of all that once stretched before you nothing will 
be left but one tiny strip of sand, fast sinking away 
with the tide beneath your feet and before you a 
wild and unlighted ocean. 

Accept God's fatherly love through confessing 
and embracing Christ. Commit your life into the 
hand of the Father who holds the future, and then 
you can sing every fear to sleep with the lullaby of 
a sweet and blessed trust. 

" For tho' from out our bourne of Time and Place 
The flood may bear me far, 
I hope to see my Pilot face to face 
When I have crossed the bar." 



XV 



SHALL WE KNOW EACH OTHER IN 
HEAVEN? 

Then we who are alive and remain shall be caught up to- 
gether with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the 
air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord. 

— i Thessai,onians 4: 17. 

THE Church to-day is giving much thought 
to the fact of immortality, its certainty 
as made manifest by the resurrection of 
Jesus. But it seems to me that there is another 
question of equal importance: Shall the resurrec- 
tion, granting that there is a resurrection, usher us 
into an existence that is desirable ? Is immortality 
desirable ? I recall when a boy hearing it said that 
heaven is an eternal Sabbath. If it is — and I 
would say it reverently — then there is not much to 
choose between heaven and the other place. One 
of the things that will make heaven desirable is the 
maintenance of our identity and individuality. If 
we are to lose these and immortality is only the 
endurance of corporate life, then there is not much 
to be gained by it. This, you know, was George 
Eliot's belief. Another thing that will make it de- 
sirable is that we shall know each other in heaven. 
If we shall not, then there will be nothing so in- 

*53 



154 SHALL WE KNOW IN HEAVEN? 



conceivably lonely as the souls that shall pass each 
other on the golden streets, like ships that pass in 
the night, with, perhaps, only a salute, but with no 
knowledge of the passer-by. 

It seems to me that next to the fact of seeing 
Christ face to face and living in perfect fellowship 
with Him and becoming like Him whom we shall 
see face to face, dwelling in the consciousness of 
His infinite love, there is nothing so essential to a 
happy existence as the knowledge of and fellow- 
ship with our redeemed friends. We are depend- 
ent upon them in this world for our happiness and 
joy, and I feel that we shall be none the less de- 
pendent upon them in heaven. A man was once 
asked if he thought that he should know his twin 
sister in heaven. He replied that he would be so 
absorbed in the " bright and morning star " that he 
might sit by her for ages and not notice her, in 
which statement I think that there is a vast amount 
of pious ignorance. We do not love Jesus Christ 
less because of our pious friends here, rather more, 
I should say, and shall not the presence and com- 
munion with our fellows there lead us also to love 
Christ the more there? I have a favourite sister 
in heaven and when I get there the first thing I ex- 
pect to do is to pay my Lord the homage of a heart 
overflowing with gratitude, and the next thing I 
expect to do is to look up my sister and renew the 
sweet companionship of earth that was broken a 
few years ago. Is this hope an intelligent hope? 
Do we have any proofs that substantiate the an- 



SHALL WE KNOW IN HEAVEN? 155 



swer that we shall know each other in heaven ? It 
seems to me that we have three witnesses, — the 
witness of human instinct, the witness of reason, 
and the witness of the Scriptures. 

I. The witness of human instinct. 

The instinct of the individual here and there may 
be wrong, but the perennial instinct of the race is 
true. It must be true else we live in a state of 
perpetual self-deception and God has given us de- 
sires to mock us as would some cruel king who 
would make the starving of a poor subject more 
terrible by showing him now and then an inviting 
banquet. Man is made in God's likeness, and in- 
stinct is the echo of God in the soul, like to the 
echo of the measureless sea in the sea-shell. All 
races and peoples have felt that there should be a 
conscious reunion after death. Socrates with the 
cup of poison in his hand said to his friends: " If 
the common expression be true that death conveys 
us to the place of departed men, then with delight 
I drink this hemlock, for it sends my spirit to com- 
mune with Homer and Hesiod." The Romans be- 
lieved it. The Egyptians, the earliest of the race, 
believed it, for they filled with toys the hands of 
their dead children and with trinkets for others 
who had died before that these might be carried to 
them. The Hindus believed it, and the widow who 
ascended the funeral pyre to be burned was wont 
to say, " Oh, that I may enjoy as many years with 
my departed husband as there are hairs in this 
flowing braid ! " Men have always believed and 



156 SHALL WE KNOW IN HE A YEN f 



still believe that we shall know each other in the 
better life. 

II. The witness of human reason. 

There are four links in the chain of reason that 
weld themselves into an irrefutable demonstration. 
Let us assume the fact of immortality, this being 
my starting point. The second link in that chain 
is identity, individuality. This follows the fact of 
immortality as a necessary sequence. Conscious 
personality is not impaired by death. I am. I 
think. Let him who may strive to prove that I 
shall never do these things. I am a self-conscious 
personality and that self-consciousness I shall never 
lose. Death does not even impair it; it is but a 
covered bridge, a cut through the mountain. We 
shall not sink our personality nor lose our identity 
as the drop of water is lost in the fathomless sea. 

Then the third link in that chain is memory. 
Memory is a natural and necessary postulate of the 
soul. I cannot exist without memory and memory 
is immortal. In the other world Abraham said to 
the rich man, " Son, remember," and the justice of 
his punishment he based upon a fact which he 
could remember. We can have no moral existence 
without memory. We could not even be judged at 
the Great Day without memory. If a prisoner 
were at the bar for some crime and could not re- 
member the crime, he would not be sent to prison ; 
he would be sent to the asylum because he would 
not be regarded by the courts as a moral agent. 
And if God calls me at the last great day to answer 



SHALL WE KNOW IN HEAVEN! 157 

for deeds done in the body, how shall I answer for 
them unless I can remember them and these deeds 
are so thoroughly identified with the lives of others 
that in remembering them I must remember those 
identified with them? And if I remember those, 
then why shall I not always remember them ? We 
shall all doubtless walk together in the green pas- 
tures and review with our friends and loved ones 
the joys and sorrows of this earthly life. We shall 
remember there as clearly as we remember here the 
old home, the old oak in the yard, the spring down 
under the hill, the tree where the chestnuts first 
fell, the slope where the berries hung red, and the 
companionships of youth where friendship bloomed 
into love and when that love became to us a good 
angel to guide our feet in the ways of purity and 
peace. 

Now, then, the fourth link in the chain is recog- 
nition. If we live on and maintain our identity, 
and if we live on we must maintain our identity, 
else we might as well not live; and if we maintain 
the self-conscious ego, then we must also remem- 
ber, for memory is a necessary faculty of one's 
being as much as reason or imagination, then the 
necessary consequence of all this is, that there must 
be recognition. Walking the streets of Washing- 
ton one day with a classmate of mine from South 
Carolina, we decided to stroll out through one of 
the parks. Ahead of us we saw a young man and 
I said to my classmate that the man was another 
member of our class, whom I named. Though his 



158 SHALL WE KNOW IN HEAVEN ?j 



back was turned and he was a good distance ahead 
of us we thought that we recognized the walk and 
the build as his. We argued the matter for a little 
while until the man ahead of us reached down to 
strike a match and light his pipe. A certain 
peculiarity in striking a match led us both to say 
instantly that the man was our friend in question. 
We called to him and he turned and made answer. 
If a peculiarity of the body can identify one on the 
earth, why may not some little individual feature of 
the soul serve to identify one in heaven? Dr. 
Burrell tells of a county fair in New England 
where the parade was being led by some old-time 
musicians, veterans of the War of 1812. A gray- 
haired drummer had taken his place by the side of 
a decrepit fifer. They were quite unknown to one 
another. They led the march with their music. 
At last the fifer struck up a tune in which the 
drummer did not follow him. The fire kindled in 
the old drummer's eyes. He held his sticks mo- 
tionless, then approaching the fifer he pulled back 
the cap from his gray hair and with flashing eyes 
cried out, "John, you have played that before; 
you played it in the charge at Lundy's Lane. I 
mind ye, I played the drum beside ye that bloody 
day. Man, where have ye bin? " Such times as 
that in heaven must be a natural corollary of the 
faculties which are exercised in the flesh on earth. 

III. The witness of the Holy Scriptures. 

That we shall know each other in the better land 
is the clear testimony of the Scriptures. This 



SHALL WE KNOW IN HEAVEN f 159 



testimony is recorded in those passages which speak 
of the departed as having joined the saints 
triumphant. For example, we find this expression 
frequently appearing in the Old Testament, — " He 
was gathered to his fathers." That does not mean 
that they were buried in the same grave. They 
were not. It was not the case with Abraham. It 
could not have been the case with Moses. Yet it 
is said of them that they were gathered to their 
fathers. It must have been a conscious reunion 
with those long-departed dead who had been loved 
in life. Then we find the same truth in the story 
of JPavid's bereavement. When told that his child 
was dead, he washed himself and went into the 
house of the Lord and worshiped, saying, " He 
shall not return to me, but I shall go to him." He 
could not have been comforted by the thought that 
he would go to the grave with him, nor could he 
have found comfort in the thought that he would 
enter into an existence in which he would not know 
his child. It must have been the thought of a 
future conscious reunion with and recovery of that 
loved and lost child that brought peace to his soul. 

Again we see the proof of it in those passages 
that give us a picture of heaven. For one thing 
heaven is spoken of as a home. " In my Father's 
house are many mansions. . . . I go to pre- 
pare a place for you." That must mean that 
heaven is a home. What makes a home? Not 
four walls and a roof and a floor; not tapestries 
and pictures and carpets; not even beds and food 



160 SHALL WE KNOW IN HEAVEN? 



and shelter and drink. That which makes a home 
is the presence of our loved ones. What sort of a 
heaven would that be where the members of the 
family did not even know one another? I repeat 
that there is a good deal of pious ignorance about 
feeling that you shall be so absorbed in the praise 
of God that you shall have no time to think of your 
dear friends. There is nothing incompatible be- 
tween the love of God and the love of our friends. 
In fact God's love is made perfect in us when we 
love one another. 

Still further, we see this fact in those passages 
that speak of heaven as a feast. Well, it would be 
a chilly sort of an experience to sit down at a ban- 
quet where we knew no one except the host. I 
have had a few such experiences. I have been at 
banquets where I knew only a few people and none 
knew me, and I tell you it is right much of a bore. 
Shall we look forward to being at the marriage 
feast of the Lamb and not expect to meet our 
friends there? Jesus said, "Many shall come from 
the east and west, and shall sit down with Abraham, 
and Isaac, and Jacob, in the kingdom of heaven." 
Why sit with the patriarchs if we are not to know 
them ? Heaven is not to be an eternal masquerade 
party. It is to be a feast where loved ones will 
mingle, where we shall rejoice in the host and also 
rejoice with the guests, many of whom are our 
friends here. 

There are, furthermore, clear glimpses of heaven 
given us in the New Testament. Take, for ex- 



SHALL WE KNOW IN HEAYEN? 161 



ample, the story of our Lord's transfiguration. 
Here were two worthies who had been dead for 
long centuries, but who knew not only each other 
but who were known and recognized by the dis- 
ciples who were still in this world and taking an 
active part in the affairs of this life. Then con- 
sider the story of the rich man and Lazarus. The 
rich man in perdition saw Lazarus in heaven and 
knew him and those in heaven knew the rich man, 
You may say that that is only a parable, but would 
Christ use a parable that would deceive and teach a 
false doctrine as to heaven? 

Consider also the New Testament teaching con- 
cerning our departed dead. This is exactly what 
Paul was doing in the passage which I have taken 
as a text. The Thessalonians were disturbed about 
their loved ones who had departed. They had 
died, many of them as martyrs. They had given 
up their lives as a testimony, and the question with 
the Christians of Thessalonica was whether they 
would ever see their loved ones again. Would they 
ever meet? Paul says, " I would not have you to 
be ignorant, brethren, concerning them who are 
asleep, that ye sorrow not, even as others who have 
no hope. For if we believe that Jesus died and 
rose again, even so them also who sleep in Jesus 
will God bring with him. . . . For the Lord 
himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, 
with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump 
of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first: then 
we who are alive and remain shall be caught up 



162 SHALL WE KNOW IN HEAVEN? 



together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord 
in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord." 
Note the use of the word " we." We shall be there 
as friends and loved ones, who have contended for 
the faith and have entered into life. 

Thus, my friends, the hope of a blessed resur- 
rection and reunion rests upon the sure testimony 
of Scriptures as well as upon the testimony of 
reason and instinct. And, as Paul counsels, we 
are to comfort one another with these words. 

" As for thy friends, they are not lost, 
The severed vessels of thy fleet, 
Though parted now, by tempests tossed, 
Shall safely in the haven meet. 

" The stars come nightly to the sky, 
The tidal wave into the sea, 
No height nor depth, not near nor far 
Can keep my own away from me." 

My friends, I speak to many a bereaved heart, 
many a bereaved husband or wife who long to look 
again into each other's eyes. You do not need to 
sorrow as those who have no hope, for you shall 
meet and whatever is pure in earthly love shall still 
exist purified and glorified, and even though the 
relationship may not be the same, the love will be 
the same and more intense. I speak to bereaved 
fathers and mothers who have little children there. 
The promise is that you shall meet them and know 
them there and they shall know you. I speak to 



SHALL WE KNOW IN HEAVEN ? 163 



fatherless and motherless children who want noth- 
ing so much as they want again mother. You shall 
have her back, and of all of us who have lost 
friends and dear ones it shall be said in that day as 
it was said of the widow of Nain whose son Jesus 
had raised from the dead, " Jesus delivered him to 
his mother." Jesus shall likewise give back to all 
of you the dear departed dead in a reunion never 
again to be broken. And we shall, all of us. sit 
down with them at the marriage supper of the 
Lamb. When that banquet is spread in the Father's 
house, I expect to be there and I expect to meet 
my friends there. And if one is not there, it will 
be his own fault, for Jesus has spread the table and 
sent you an invitation and loved ones wait for you 
there. 



Printed in the Un ited States of America 



Deacidified using the Bookkeeper process. 

Neutralizing agent: Magnesium Oxide 
Treatment Date: May 2006 

PreservationTechnologies 

A WORLD LEADER IN PAPER PRESERVATION 
1 1 1 Thomson Park Drive 
Cranberry Township, PA 16066 
(724)779-2111 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 




017 579 095 * 



